V,':  ■  . 


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SOCIALISM  AND  MODERN  SCIENCE. 


INTERNATIONAL  LIBRARY 


Socialism  and 
Modern  Science 

( DARWIN— SPENCER— MARX) 


ENRICO  FERRI 


TRANSLATED  BY 

ROBT.  RIVES  LA  MONTE 


SECOND  EDITION 


New  York 

International  Library  Publishing  Co. 

1904 


BOSTON  COLLEGE  LIBRARY 
CHESTNUT  HILL,  MASS. 


Copyright,  1900. 

By  The  International  Library  Publishing  Co. 


AUG-7'61 


Uable  of  Contents. 


PAGE. 

Preface . . . . .  5 

Introduction . . . .  9 

I. 

THE  THREE  ALLEGED  CONTRADICTIONS  BETWEEN 
DARWINISM  AND  SOCIALISM. 

Virchow  and  Haeckel  at  the  Congress  of  Munich .  13 

a)  The  equality  of  individuals .  19 

b)  The  struggle  for  life  and  its  victims .  35 

c)  The  survival  of  the  fittest .  49 

SOCIALISM  AS  A  CONSEQUENCE  OF  DARWINISM. 

Socialism  and  religious  beliefs .  59 

The  individual  and  the  species .  67 

The  struggle  for  life  and  the  class-struggle .  74 

II. 

EVOLUTION  AND  SOCIALISM. 

The  orthodox  thesis  and  the  socialist  thesis  confronted  by 

the  theory  of  evolution .  92 

The  law  of  apparent  retrogression  and  collective  ownership  100 

The  social  evolution  and  individual  liberty .  110 

Evolution. — Revolution. — Rebellion. — Violence .  129 

III. 

SOCIOLOGY  AND  SOCIALISM. 

Sterility  of  sociology .  156 

Marx  completes  Darwin  and  Spencer.  Conservatives  and 

socialists .  159 

Appendix  I. — Reply  to  Spencer .  173 

Appendix  II. — Socialist  superstition  and  individualist  myopia  177 


<s.« 


. 


I 


Ilntrotmction. 


Convinced  Darwinian  and  Spencerian,  as  I  am,  it  is 
my  intention  to  demonstrate  that  Marxian  Socialism — 
the  only  socialism  which  has  a  truly  scientific  method 
and  value,  and  therefore  the  only  socialism  which  from 
this  time  forth  has  power  to  inspire  and  unite  the  Social 
Democrats  throughout  the  civilized  world — is  only  the 
practical  and  fruitful  fulfilment,  in  the  social  life,  of 
that  modern  scientific  revolution  which — inaugurated 
some  centuries  since  by  the  rebirth  of  the  experimental 
method  in  all  branches  of  human  knowledge — has 
triumphed  in  our  times,  thanks  to  the  works  of  Charles 
Darwin  and  Herbert  Spencer. 

It  is  true  that  Darwin  and  especially  Spencer  halted 
when  they  had  travelled  only  half  way  toward  the  con¬ 
clusions  of  a  religious,  political  or  social  order,  which 
necessarily  flow  from  their  indisputable  premises.  But 
that  is,  as  it  were,  only  an  individual  episode,  and  has  no 
power  to  stop  the  desiiiied ,  march  of  science  and  of  its 
practical  consequences,  which  are  in  wonderful  accord 


10 


with  the  necessities — necessities  enforced  upon  our  atten¬ 
tion  by  want  and  misery — of  contemporary  life.  This  is 
simply  one  more  reason  why  it  is  incumbent  upon  us  to 
render  justice  to  the  scientific  and  political  work  of  Karl 
Marx  which  completes  the  renovation  of  modern  scientific 
thought. 

Feeling  and  thought  are  the  two. inseparable  impelling 
forces  of  the  individual  life  and  of  the  collective  life. 

Socialism,  which  was  still,  but  a  few  years  since,  at  the 
mercy  of  the  strong  and  constantly  recurring  but  undis¬ 
ciplined  fluctuations  of  humanitarian  sentimentalism, 
has  found,  in  the  work  of  that  great  man,  Karl  Marx, 
and  of  those  who  have  developed  and  completed  his 
thought,  its  scientific  and  political  guide.1  This  is  the 
explanation  of  every  one  of  its  conquests. 

Civilization  is  the  most  fruitful  and  most  beautiful 
development  of  human  energies,  but  it  contains  also  an 
infectious  virus  of  tremendous  power.  Beside  the 
splendor  of  its  artistic,  scientific  and  industrial  achieve¬ 
ments,  it  accumulates  gangrenous  products,  idleness, 
poverty,  misery,  insanity,  crime  and  physical  suicide  and 
moral  suicide,  i.  e.  servility. 

Pessimism — that  sad  symptom  of  a  life  without  ideals 
and,  in  part,  the  effect  of  the  exhaustion  or  even  of  the 
degeneration  of  the  nervous  system — glorifies  the  final 


1  The  word  in  the  original  means  a  mariner’s  compass. — Tr. 


11 


annihilation  of  all  life  and  sensation  as  the  only  mode 
of  escaping  from  or  triumphing  over  pain  and  suffering. 

We  have  faith,  on  the  contrary,  in  the  eternal  virtiis 
medicatrix  naturae  (healing  power  of  Nature),  and 
socialism  is  precisely  that  breath  of  a  new  and  better 
life  which  will  free  humanity — after  some  access  of  fever 
perhaps — from  the  noxious  products  of  the  present  phase 
of  civilization,  and  which,  in  a  more  advanced  phase, 
will  give  a  new  power  and  opportunity  of  expansion  to 
all  the  healthy  and  fruitful  energies  of  all  human  beings. 


Borne,  June,  1894. 

J  jQ? 


Enrico  Ferri. 


r 


/  /  / 


A 

/ 


Socialism  and  Modern  Science. 


PART  FIRST. 

I. 

VIRCHOW  AND  HAECKEL  AT  THE  CONGRESS  OF  MUNICH. 

On  the  18th  of  September,  1877,  Ernest  Haeckel,  the 
celebrated  embryologist  of  J ena,  delivered  at  the 
Congress  of  Naturalists,  which  was  held  at  Munich,  an 
eloquent  address  defending  and  propagating  Darwinism, 
which  was  at  that  time  the  object  of  the  most  bitter 
polemical  attacks. 

A  few  days  afterward,  Virchow,  the  great  pathologist, 
— an  active  member  of  the  “progressive”  parliamentary 
party,  hating  new  theories  in  politics  just  as  much  as  in 
science — violently  assailed  the  Darwinian  theory  of 
organic  evolution,  and,  moved  by  a  very  just  presenti¬ 
ment,  hurled  against  it  this  cry  of  alarm,  this  political 
anathema:  “Darwinism  leads  directly  to  socialism.” 

The  German  Darwinians,  and  at  their  head  Messrs. 
Oscar  Schmidt  and  Haeckel,  immediately  protested;  and. 


- 


.  ' 


—  14  — 

in  order  to  avert  the  addition  of  strong  political  opposi¬ 
tion  to  the  religious,  philosophical,  and  biological  opposi¬ 
tion  already  made  to  Darwinism,  they  maintained,  on 
the  contrary,  that  the  Darwinian  theory  is  in  direct,  open 
and  absolute  opposition  to  socialism. 

“If  the  Socialists  were  prudent,”  wrote  Oscar  Schmidt 
in  the  “Ausland”  of  November  27,  1877,  “they  would  do 
their  utmost  to  kill,  by  silent  neglect,  the  theory  of 
descent,  for  that  theory  most  emphatically  proclaims 
that  the  socialist  ideas  are  impracticable.” 

“As  a  matter  of  fact,”  said  Haeckel,1  “there  is  no 
scientific  doctrine  which  proclaims  more  openly  than  the 
theory  of  descent  that  the  equality  of  individuals,  toward 
which  socialism  tends,  is  an  impossibility;  that  this  chim¬ 
erical  equality  is  in  absolute  contradiction  with  the 
necessary  and,  in  fact,  universal  inequality  of  individuals. 

“Socialism  demands  for  all  citizens  equal  rights,  equal 
duties,  equal  possessions  and  equal  enjoyments;  the 
theory  of  descent  establishes,  on  the  contrary,  that  the 
realization  of  these  hopes  is  purely  and  simply  impos¬ 
sible;  that,  in  human  societies,  as  in  animal  societies, 
neither  the  rights,  nor  the  duties,  nor  the  possessions, 
nor  the  enjoyments  of  all  the  members  of  a  society  are 
or  ever  can  be  equal. 

“The  great  law  of  variation  teaches — both  in  the  gen¬ 
eral  theory  of  evolution  and  in  the  smaller  field  of 
biology  where  it  becomes  the  theory  of  descent — that 
the  variety  of  phenomena  flows  from  an  original  unity, 

1  Les  preuves  du  transformisme. — Paris,  1879,  page  110 
et  seq. 


the  diversity  of  functions  from  a  primitive  identity,  and 
the  complexity  of  organization  from  a  primordial  sim¬ 
plicity.  The  conditions  of  existence  for  all  individuals 
are,  from  their  very  birth,  unequal.  There  must  also  be 
taken  into  consideration  the  inherited  qualities  and  the 
innate  tendencies  which  also  vary  more  or  less 
widely.  In  view  of  all  this,  how  can  the  work  and  the 
reward  be  equal  for  all? 

“The  more  highly  the  social  life  is  developed,  the 
more  important  becomes  the  great  principle  of  the  divi¬ 
sion  of  labor,  the  more  requisite  it  becomes  for  the 
stable  existence  of  the  State  as  a  whole  that  its  members 
should  distribute  among  themselves  the  multifarious 
tasks  of  life,  each  performing  a  single  function;  and  as 
the  labor  which  must  be  performed  by  the  individuals, 
as  well  as  the  expenditure  of  strength,  talent,  money,  etc., 
which  it  necessitates,  differs  more  and  more,  it  is  natural 
that  the  remuneration  of  this  labor  should  also  vary 
widely.  These  are  facts  so  simple  and  so  obvious  that  it 
seems  to  me  every  intelligent  and  enlightened  statesman 
ought  to  be  an  advocate  of  the  theory  of  descent  and  the 
general  doctrine  of  evolution,  as  the  best  antidote  for  the 
absurd  equalitarian,  utopian  notions  of  the  socialists. 

“And  it  was  Darwinism,  the  theory  of  selection,  that 
Virchow,  in  his  denunciation,  had  in  mind,  rather  than 
mere  metamorphic  development,  the  theory  of  descent, 
with  which  it  is  always  confused!  Darwinism  is  any¬ 
thing  rather  than  socialistic. 

“If  one  wishes  to  attribute  a  political  tendency  to  this 
English  theory, — which  is  quite  permissible, — this 


16 


tendency  can  be  nothing  but  aristocratic;  by  no  means 
can  it  be  democratic,  still  less  socialistic. 

“The  theory  of  selection  teaches  that  in  the  life  of 
mankind,  as  in  that  of  plants  and  animals,  it  is  always 
and  everywhere  a  small  privileged  minority  alone  which 
succeeds  in  living  and  developing  itself;  the  immense 
majority,  on  the  contrary,  suffer  and  succumb  more  or 
less  prematurely.  Countless  are  the  seeds  and  eggs  of 
every  species  of  plants  and  animals,  and  the  young  indi¬ 
viduals  who  issue  from  them.  But  the  number  of  those 
who  have  the  good  fortune  to  reach  fully  developed 
maturity  and  to  attain  the  goal  of  their  existence  is 
relatively  insignificant. 

“The  cruel  and  pitiless  ‘struggle  for  existence’  which 
rages  everywhere  throughout  animated  nature,  and  which 
in  the  nature  of  things  must  rage,  this  eternal  and  inex¬ 
orable  competition  between  all  living  beings,  is  an 
undeniable  fact.  Only  a  small  picked  number  of  the 
strongest  or  fittest  is  able  to  come  forth  victoriously  from 
.this  battle  of  competition.  The  great  majority  of  their 
unfortunate  competitors  are  inevitably  destined  to  perish. 
It  is  well  enough  to  deplore  this  tragic  fatality,  but  one 
cannot  deny  it  or  change  it.  ‘Many  are  called,  but  few 
are  chosen!’ 

V*-  . .  . 

“The  selection,  the  ‘election’  of  these  ‘elect’  is  by  abso¬ 
lute  necessity  bound  up  with  the  rejection  or  destruc¬ 
tion  of  the  vast  multitude  of  beings  whom  they  have 
survived.  And  so  another  learned  Englishman  has 
called  the  fundamental  principle  of  Darwinism  ‘the  sur¬ 
vival  of  the  fittest,  the  victory  of  the  best.’ 

At  all  events,  the  principle  of  selection  is  not  in  the 


Z  / 


&  & 


—  17  — 


slightest  degree  democratic;  it  is,  on  the  contrary, 
thoroughly  aristocratic.  If,  then,  Darwinism,  carried 
out  to  its  ultimate  logical  consequences,  has,  according 
to  Virchow,  for  the  statesman  ‘an  extraordinarily  danger¬ 
ous  side/  the  danger  is  doubtless  that  it  favors  aristocratic 
aspirations.” 

I  have  reproduced  complete  and  in  their  exact  form 
all  the  arguments  of  Haeckel,  because  they  are  those 
which  are  repeated — in  varying  tones,  and  with  expres¬ 
sions  which  differ  from  his  only  to  lose  precision  and 
eloquence — by  those  opponents  of  socialism  who  love  to 
appear  scientific,  and  who,  for  polemical  convenience, 
make  use  of  those  ready-made  or  stereotyped  phrases 
which  have  currency,  even  in  science,  more  than  is  com¬ 
monly  imagined. 

It  is  easy,  nevertheless,  to  demonstrate  that,  in  this 
debate^  Virchow’s  way  of  looking  at  the  subject  was  the 


more  correct  and  more  perspicacious,  and  that  the  history 


/N 


of  these  last  twenty  years  has  amply  justified  his  position.  ^  ^ 

It  has  happened,  indeed,  that  Darwinism  and  socialism 
have  both  progressed  with  a  marvelous  power  of  expan¬ 
sion.  From  that  time  the  one  was  to  conquer — for  its 
fundamental  theory — the  unanimous  endorsement  of 
naturalists;  the  other  was  to  continue  to  develop — in  its 
general  aspirations  as  in  its  political  discipline — flooding 
all  the  conduits  of  the  social  consciousness,  like  a 
torrential  inundation  from  internal  wounds  caused  by  the 
daily  growth  of  physical  and  moral  disease,  or  like  a 
gradual,  capillary,  inevitable  infiltration  into  minds  freed 
from  all  prejudices,  and  which  are  not  satisfied  by  the 


merely  personal  advantages  that  they  derive  from  the 
orthodox  distribution  of  spoils. 

But,  as  political  or  scientific  theories  are  natural 
phenomena  and  not  the  capricious  and  ephemeral  prod¬ 
ucts  of  the  free  wills  of  those  who  construct  and 
propagate  them,  it  is  evident  that  if  these  two  currents  of 
modern  thought  have  each  been  able  to  triumph  over  the 
opposition  they  first  aroused — the  strongest  kind  of  oppo¬ 
sition,  scientific  and  political  conservatism — and  if  every 
day  increases  the  army  of  their  avowed  disciples,  this  of 
itself  is  enough  to  show  us — I  was  about  to  say  by  a  law 
of  intellectual  symbiosis — that  they  are  neither  irrecon¬ 
cilable  with,  nor  contradictory  to,  each  other. 

Moreover,  the  three  principal  arguments  which  form 
the  substance  of  the  anti-socialist  reasoning  of  Haeckel 
resist  neither  the  most  elementary  criticisms,  nor  the 
most  superficial  observation  of  every-day  life. 

These  arguments  are: 

I.  — Socialism  tends  toward  a  chimerical  equality  of 
persons  and  property:  Darwinism,  on  the  contrary,  not 
only  establishes,  but  shows  the  organic  necessity  of  the 
natural  inequality  of  the  capabilities  and  even  the  wants 
of  individuals. 

II.  — In  the  life  of  mankind,  as  in  that  of  plants  and 
animals,  the  immense  majority  of  those  who  are  born  are 
destined  to  perish,  because  only  a  small  minority  can 
triumph  in  the  “struggle  for  existence”;  socialism  asserts, 
on  the  contrary,  that  all  ought  to  triumph  in  this  strug¬ 
gle,  and  that  no  one  is  inexorably  destined  to  be  con¬ 
quered. 

III.  — The  struggle  for  existence  assures  “the  survival 


of  the  best,  the  victory  of  the  fittest,”  and  this  results  in 
an  aristocratic  hierarchic  gradation  of  selected  indi¬ 
viduals — a  continuous  progress — instead  of  the  demo¬ 
cratic,  collectivist  leveling  of  socialism. 


II. 


THE  EQUALITY  OF  INDIVIDUALS. 

The  first  of  the  objections,  which  is  brought  against 
socialism  in  the  name  of  Darwinism,  is  absolutely  without 
foundation. 

If  it  were  true  that  socialism  aspires  to  “the  equality 
of  all  individuals,”  it  would  be  correct  to  assert  that 
Darwinism  irrevocably  condemns  it.1 

But  although  even  to-day  it  is  still  currently  repeated 
— by  some  in  good  faith,  like  parrots  who  recite  their 
stereotyped  phrases;  by  others  in  bad  faith,  with  polemi¬ 
cal  skillfulness — that  socialism  is  synonymous  with 
equality  and  leveling;  the  truth  is,  on  the  contrary,  that 
scientific  socialism — the  socialism  which  draws  its  in¬ 
spiration  from  the  theory  of  Marx,  and  which  alone 
to-day  is  worthy  of  support  or  opposition, — has  never 
denied  the  inequality  of  individuals,  as  of  all  living 

1  J.  De  Johannis,  II  concetto  delV equaglianza  nel  socialismo 
e  nella  scienza,  in  Rassegna  delle  scienza  sociali,  Florence, 
March  15,  1883,  and  more  recently,  Huxley,  “On  the  Natural 
Inequality  of  Men,”  in  the  “Nineteenth  Century,”  January, 

1890. 


20 


beings — inequality  innate  and  acquired,  physical  and 
intellectual.1 

It  is  just  as  if  one  should  say  that  socialism  asserts  that 
a  royal  deoree  or  a  popular  vote  could  settle  it  that 
“henceforth  all  men  shall  be  five  feet  seven  inches  tall.” 

But  in  truth,  socialism  is  something  more  serious  and 
more  difficult  to  refute. 

Socialism  says:  Men  are  unequal ,  but  they  are  all  (of 
them)  men. 

And,  in  fact,  although  each  individual  is  born  and 


^  1  Utopian  socialism  has  bequeathed  to  us  as  a  mental  habit, 
/  a  habit  surviving  even  in  the  most  intelligent  disciples  of 
Marxian  socialism,  of  asserting  the  existence  of  certain 
f  equalities — the  equality  of  the  two  sexes,  for  example —  asser¬ 
tions  which  cannot  possibly  be  maintained. 

Bebel,  Woman  in  the  Past ,  Present  and  Future. 

Bebel,  the  propagandist  and  expounder  of  Marxian  theories, 
also  repeats  this  assertion  that,  from  the  psycho-physiologi¬ 
cal  point  of  view,  woman  is  the  equal  of  man,  and  he 
attempts  to  refute,  without  success,  the  scientific  objections 
that  have  been  made  to  this  thesis. 

Since  the  scientific  investigations  of  Messrs.  Lombroso 
and  Ferrero,  embodied  in  Donna  delinquente,  prostituta  e  nor - 
male,  Turin,  1893  (This  book  has  been  translated  into  Eng¬ 
lish,  if  my  memory  serves  me  right. — Tr.),  one  can  no  longer 
deny  the  physiological  and  psychological  inferiority  of 
woman  to  man.  I  have  given  a  Darwinian  explanation  of 
this  fact  ( Scuola  positiva,  1893,  Nos.  7-8),  that  Lombroso 
has  since  completely  accepted  ( Uomo  di  genio,  6e  6dit.,  1894. 
This  book  is  also  available  in  English,  I  believe. — Tr.)  I 
pointed  out  that  all  the  physio-psychical  characteristics  of 
woman  are  the  consequences  of  her  great  biological  function, 
maternity. 

A  being  who  creates  another  being— not  in  the  fleeting 


I 


develops  in  a  fashion  more  or  less  different  from  that  of 

all  other  individuals, — just  as  there  are  not  in  a  forest 

two  leaves  identically  alike,  so  in  the  whole  world  there 

are  not  two  men  in  all  respects  equals,  the  one  of  the 

other, — nevertheless  every  man,  simply  because  he  is  a  **•/  v 

human  being ,  has  a  right  to  the  existence  of  a  man,  and  /J’ :  ,4r^Ui 

not  of  a  slave  or  a  beast  of  burden. 

We  know,  we  as  well  as  our  opponents,  that  all  men  M  *•'  ’  '  * 
cannot  perform  the  same  kind  and  amount  of  labor — 
now,  when  social  inequalities  are  added  to  equalities  of 
natural  origin — and  that  they  will  still  be  unable  to  do 


moment  of  a  voluptuous  contact,  but  by  the  organic  and 
psychical  sacrifices  of  pregnancy,  childbirth  and  giving  suck 
— cannot  preserve  for  herself  as  much  strength,  physical  and  4 
mental,  as  man  whose  only  function  in  the  reproduction 
of  the  species  is  infinitely  less  of  a  drain. 

And  so,  aside  from  certain  individual  exceptions,  woman 
has  a  lower  degree  of  physical  sensibility  than  man  (the 
current  opinion  is  just  the  opposite),  because  if  her  sensi¬ 
bility  were  greater,  she  could  not,  according  to  the  Darwin¬ 
ian  law,  survive  the  immense  and  repeated,  sacrifices  of 
maternity,  and  the  species  would  become  extinct.  Woman’s 
intellect  is  weaker,  especially  in  synthetic  power,  precisely 
because  though  there  are  no  (Sergi,  in  Atti  della  societa 
romana  di  antropologia,  1894)  women  of  genius,  they  never¬ 
theless  give  birth  to  men  of  genius. 

This  is  so  true  that  greater  sensibility  and  power  of 
intellect  are  found  in  women  in  whom  the  function  and 
sentiment  of  maternity  are  undeveloped  or  are  only  slightly 
developed  (women  of  genius  generally  have  a  masculine 
physiognomy),  and  many  of  them  attain  their  complete 
intellectual  development  only  after  they  pass  the  critical 
period  of  life  during  which  the  maternal  functions  cease 
finally.  ~~ —  •* - - — — -  . — — — 


it  under  a  socialist  regime — when  the  social  organization 
will  tend  to  reduce  the  effect  of  congenital  inequalities. 

There  will  always  be  some  people  whose  brains  or 
muscular  systems  will  be  better  adapted  for  scientific 
work  or  for  artistic  work,  while  others  will  be  more  fit 
for  manual  labor,  or  for  work  requiring  mechanical  pre¬ 
cision,  etc. 

What  ought  not  to  be,  and  what  will  not  be — is  that 
there  should  be  some  men  who  do  not  work  at  all,  and 
others  who  work  too  much  or  receive  too  little  reward 
for  their  toil. 


But,  if  it  is  scientifically  certain  that  woman  represents 
an  inferior  degree  of  biological  evolution,  and  that  she 
occupies  a  station,  even  as  regards  her  physio-psychical 
characteristics,  midway  between  the  child  and  the  adult 
male,  it  does  not  follow  from  this  that  the  socialist  con¬ 
clusions  concerning  the  woman  question  are  false. 

Quite  the  contrary.  Society  ought  to  place  woman,  as 
a  human  being  and  as  a  creatress  of  men — more  worthy 
therefore  of  love  and  respect — in  a  better  juridical  and 
ethical  situation  than  she  enjoys  at  present.  Now  she  is 
too  often  a  beast  of  burden  or  an  object  of  luxury.  In 
the  same  way  when,  from  the  economic  point  of  view,  we 
demand  at  the  present  day  special  measures  in  behalf  of 
women,  we  simply  take  into  consideration  their  special 
physio-psychical  conditions.  The  present  economic  indi¬ 
vidualism  exhausts  them  in  factories  and  rice-fields;  social¬ 
ism,  on  the  contrary,  will  require  from  them  only  such 
professional,  scientific  or  muscular  labor  as  is  in  perfect 
harmony  with  the  sacred  function  of  maternity. 

Kuliscioff,  II  monopolio  delVuomo,  Milan,  1892,  2d  edition. 

— Mozzoni,  I  socialisti  e  V emancipazione  della  donna,  Milan, 
1891. 


*<? 


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*y 


But  we  have  reached  the  height  of  injustice  and 
absurdity,  and  in  these  days  it  is  the  man  who  does  not 
work  who  reaps  the  largest  returns,  who  is  thus  guar¬ 
anteed  the  individual  monopoly  of  wealth  which  accumu¬ 
lates  by  means  of  hereditary  transmission.  This  wealth, 
moreover,  is  only  very  rarely  due  to  the  economy  and 
abstinence  of  the  present  possessor  or  of  some  industrious 
_  ancestor  of  his;  it  is  most  frequently  the  time-honored 
fruit  of  spoliation  by  military  conquest,  by  unscrupulous 
“business”  methods,  or  by  the  favoritism  of  sovereigns; 
but  it  is  in  every  instance  always  independent  of  any 
exertion,  of  any  socially  useful  labor  of  the  inheritor, 
who  often  squanders  his  property  in  idleness  or  in  the 
■whirlpool  of  a  life  as  inane  as  it  is  brilliant  in  appearance. 

And,  when  we  are  not  confronted  with  a  fortune  due 
to  inheritance,  we  meet  with  wealth  due  to  fraud..  With¬ 
out  talking  for  the  moment  of  the  economic  organization, 
the  mechanism  of  which  Karl  Marx  has  revealed  to  us, 
and  which,  even  without  fraud,  normally  enables  the 
capitalist  or  property  owner  to  live  upon  his  income 
without  working,  it  is  indisputable  that  the  fortunes 
which  are  formed  or  enlarged  with  the  greatest  rapidity 
under  our  eyes  cannot  be  the  fruit  of  honest  toil.  The 
really  honest  workingman,  no  matter  how  indefatigable 
and  economical  he  may  be,  if  he  succeeds  in  raising  him¬ 
self  from  the  state  of  wage-slave  to  that  of  an  overseer 
or  contractor,  can,  by  a  long  life  of  privations,  accumu¬ 
late  at  most  a  few  hundreds  of  dollars.  Those  who,  on 
the  contrary,  without  making  by  their  own  talent  indus¬ 
trial  discoveries  or  inventions,  accumulate  in  a  few  years 
millions,  can  be  nothing  but  unscrupulous  manipulators 


^  j 


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of  affairs,  if  we  except  a  few  rare  strokes  of  good  luck. 
And  it  is  these  very  parasites — bankers,  etc., — who  live 
in  the  most  ostentatious  luxury  enjoying  public  honors, 
and  holding  offices  of  trust,  as  a  reward  for  their  honor¬ 
able  business  methods. 

Those  who  toil,  the  immense  majority,  receive  barely 
enough  food  to  keep  them  from  dying  of  hunger;  they 
live  in  back-rooms,  in  garrets,  in  the  filthy  alleys  of 
cities,  or  in  the  country  in  hovels  not  fit  for  stables  for 
horses  or  cattle. 

Besides  all  this,  we  must  not  forget  the  horrors  of 
being  unable  to  find  work,  the  saddest  and  most  frequent 
of  the  three  symptoms  of  that  equality  in  misery  which 
is  spreading  like  a  pestilence  over  the  economic  world  of 
modern  Italy,  as  indeed,  with  varying  degrees  of  inten¬ 
sity,  it  is  everywhere  else. 

I  refer  to  the  ever-growing  army  of  the  unemployed  in 
agriculture  and  industry — of  those  who  have  lost  their 
foothold  in  the  lower  middle  class, — and  of  those  who 
have  been  expropriated  (robbed)  of  their  little  possessions 
by  taxes,  debts  or  usury. 


It  is  not  correct,  then,  to  assert  that  socialism  demands 
for  all  citizens  material  and  actual  equality  of  labor  and 
rewards.  ** 

The  only  possible  equality  is  equality  of  obligation  to 
work  in  order  to  live,  with  a  guarantee  to  every  laborer 
of  conditions  of  existence  worthy  of  a  human  being  in 
exchange  for  the  labor  furnished  to  society. 

Equality,  according  to  socialism — as  Benoit  Malon 


k  7. 


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.  "Vvv 
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25 


said1 — is  a  relative  thing,  and  must  be  understood  in  a 


two-fold  sense:  1st,  All  men,  as  men,  must  be  guaranteed 


human  conditions  of  existence;  2d,  All  men  ought  to  be 
equal  at  the  starting  point ,  ought  not  to  he  handicapped, 
in  the  struggle  for  life,  in  order  that  each  may  freely 
develop  his  own  personality  in  an  environment  of  equality 
of  social  conditions,  while  to-day  a  child,  sound  and 
healthy,  but  poor,  goes  to  the  wall  in  competition  with  a 
child  puny  but  rich.2 

This  is  what  constitutes  the  radical,  immeasurable 
transformation  that  socialism  demands,  hut  that  it  also 
has  discovered  and  announces  as  an  evolution — already 
begun  in  the  world  around  us — that  will  be  necessarily, 
inevitably  accomplished  in  the  human  society  of  the  days 
to  come.3 

This  transformation  is  summed  up  in  the  conversion 
of  private  or  individual  ownership  of  the  means  of  pro¬ 
duction,  i.  e.  of  the  physical  foundation  of  human  life 
(land,  mines,  houses,  factories,  machinery,  instruments 
of  labor  or  tools,  and  means  of  transportation)  into  col¬ 
lective  or  social  ownership,  by  means  of  methods  and 
processes  which  I  will  consider  further  on. 

From  this  point  we  will  consider  it  as  proven  that  the- 
first  objection  of  the  anti-socialist  reasoning  does  not 
hold,  since  its  starting-point  is  non-existent.  It  assumes, 
in  short,  that  contemporary  socialism  aims  at  a  chimeri¬ 
cal  physical  and  mental  equality  of  all  men,  when  the 

1  B.  Malon,  Le  Socialisme  Integral,  2  vol.,  Paris,  1892. 

2Zultaxi,  II  privilegio  della  salute,  Milan,  1893. 

8  Letourneau,  Pass 6,  present  et  avenir  du  travail,  in  Revue 
memuelle  de  VCcole  d' anthropologic,  Paris,  June  15,  1894. 


fact  is  that  scientific  and  fact-founded  socialism  never, 
even  in  a  dream,  thought  of  such  a  thing. 

Socialism  maintains,  on  the  contrary,  that  this  inequal¬ 
ity' — though  greatly  diminished  under  a  better  social 
organization  which  will  do  away  with  all  the  physical  and 
mental  imperfections  that  are  the  cumulative  results  of 
generations  of  poverty  and  misery — can,  nevertheless, 
never  disappear  for  the  reasons  that  Darwinism  has  dis¬ 
covered  in  the  mysterious  mechanism  of  life,  in  other 
words  on  account  of  the  principle  of  variation  that 
manifests  itself  in  the  continuous  development  of  species 
culminating  in  man. 

In  every  social  organization  that  it  is  possible  to  con- 
ceive,  there  will  always  be  some  men  large  and  others 
small,  some  weak  and  some  strong,  some  phlegmatic  and 
some  nervous,  some  more  intelligent,  others  less  so,  some 
superior  in  mental  power,  others  in  muscular  strength; 
and  it  is  well  that  it  should  be  so;  moreover,  it  is  in¬ 
evitable.  £*&**-$  ^ 


It  is  well  that  this  is  so,  because  the  variety  and  in¬ 
equality  of  individual  aptitudes  naturally  produce  that 
division  of  labor  that  Darwinism  has  rightly  declared  to 
be  a  law  of  individual  physiology  and  of  social  economy. 

All  men  ought  to  work  in  order  to  live,  but  each  ought 
to  devote  himself  to  the  kind  of  labor  which  best  suits 
his  peculiar  aptitudes.  An  injurious  waste  of  strength 
and  abilities  would  thus  be  avoided,  and  labor  would 
cease  to  be  repugnant/ and  would  become  agreeable  arid 
necessary  as  a  condition  of  physical  and  moral  health. 

And  when  all  have  given  to  society  the  labor  best  suited 
\  to  their  innate  and  acquired  aptitudes,  each  has  a  right 


27 


to  the  same  rewards,  since  each  has  equally  contributed  - 
to  that  solidarity  of  labor  which  sustains  the  life  of  the 
social  aggregate  and,  in  solidarity  with  it,  the  life  of  each 
individual. 

The  peasant  who  digs  the  earth  performs  a  kind  of 
labor  in  appearance  more  modest,  but  just  as  necessary, 
useful  and  meritorious  as  that  of  the  workman  who 
builds  a  locomotive,  of  the  mechanical  engineer  who  im¬ 
proves  it  or  of  the  savant  who  strives  to  extend  the  bounds 
of  human  knowledge  in  his  study  or  laboratory. 

The  one  essential  thing  is  that  all  the  members  of 
society  work,  just  as  in  the  individual  organism  all  the 
cells  perform  their  different  functions,  more  or  less 
modest  in  appearance — for  example,  the  nerve-cells,  the 
bone-cells  or  the  muscular  cells — but  all  biological  func¬ 
tions,  or  sorts  of  labor,  equally  useful  and  necessary  to 
the  life  of  the  organism  as  a  whole. 

In  the  biological  organism  no  living  cell  remains 
inactive,  and  the  cell  obtains  nourishment  by  material 
exchanges  only  in  proportion  to  its  labor;  in  the  social 
organism  no  individual  ought  to  live  without  working, 
whatever  form  his  labor  may  take. 

In  this  way  the  majority  of  the  artificial  difficulties 
that  our  opponents  raise  against  socialism  may  be  swept 
aside. 

“Who,  then,  will  black  the  boots  under  the  socialist 
regime?”  demands  M.  Richter  in  his  book  so  poor  in 
ideas,  but  which  becomes  positively  grotesque  when  it 
assumes  that,  in  the  name  of  social  equality  the  “grand 
chancellor”  of  the  socialist  society  will  be  obliged,  before 
attending  to  the  public  business,  to  black  his  own  boots 


"I  € 


M 

r 


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2 


f  hr 

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£ 


. W-- 


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28 


and  mind  his  own  clothes!  In  truth,  if  the  adversaries 
of  socialism  had  nothing  but  arguments  of  this  sort,  dis¬ 
cussion  would  indeed  be  needless. 

But  all  will  want  to  do  the  least  fatiguing  and  most 
agreeable  kinds  of  work,  says  some  one  with  a  greater 
show  of  seriousness. 

I  will  answer  that  this  is  equivalent  to  demanding 
to-day  the  promulgation  of  a  decree  as  follows:  Hence¬ 
forth  all  men  shall  be  born  painters  or  surgeons! 

The  distribution  to  the  proper  persons  of  the  different 
kinds  of  mental  and  manual  labor  will  be  effected  in 
fact  by  the  anthropological  variations  in  temperament 
and  character,  and  there  will  be  no  need  to  resort  to 
monkish  regulations  (another  baseless  objection  to 
socialism). 

Propose  to  a  peasant  of  average  intelligence  to  devote 
himself  to  the  study  of  anatomy  or  of  the  penal  code  or, 
inversely,  tell  him  whose  brain  is  more  highly  developed 
than  his  muscles  to  dig  the  earth,  instead  of  observing 
.with  the  microscope.  They  will  each  prefer  the  lab 
for  which  they  feel  themselves~best  fitted. 

1,1  ""  111  “ — ^"r  i  orn^.tnmri.e 

'he  changes  of  occupation  or  profession  will  not  be 
as  considerable  as  many  imagine  when  society  shall'  be 
organized  under  the  collectivist  regime.  When  once  the 
industries  ministering  to  purely  personal  luxury  shall  b 
suppressed — luxury  which  in  most  cases  insults  a 
aggravates  the  misery  of  the  masses — the  quantity  ajid 
variety  of  work  will  adapt  themselves  gradually,  that  is 
to  say  naturally,  to  the  socialist  phase  of  civilization/just 
as  they  now  conform  to  the  bourgeois  phase. 

Moreover,  under  the  socialist  regime,  every  one  will 


'/  ^  fh^1  Tt ^ 

/  rjL  A  A  jr  ^  _  /  q  ""W  r~ .  f  j  ^  y®~7 


/ 


f  -fn  1  j>jr'  <*&-^ — £“< 


JU  3/  /  jlC'-CV  r  f 

/+**+*•**’* 


JSF 

-V^.vfcTf 


>  «a 

r 


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T 

6- 

£Ec&* 


Cl'*^" 


—  29  — 

have  the  fullest  liberty  to  declare  and  make  manifest  his 
personal  aptitudes,  and  it  will  not  happen,  as  it  does 
to-day,  that  many  peasants,  sons  of  the  people  and  of 
the  lower  middle  class,  gifted  with  natural  talents, 
will  be  compelled  to  allow  their  talents  to  atrophy  while 
they  toil  as  peasants,  workingmen  or  employees,  when 
they  would  be  able  to  furnish  society  a  different  and 
more  fruitful  kind  of  labor,  because  it  would  be  more  in 
harmony  with  their  peculiar  genius. 

The  one  essential  point  is  this:  In  exchange  for  the 
labor  that  they  furnish  to  society,  society  must  guarantee 
to  the  peasant  and  the  artisan,  as  well  as  to  the  one  who 
devotes  himself  to  the  liberal  careers,  conditions  of  exist¬ 
ence  worthy  of  a  human  being.  Then  we  will  no  longer 
be  affronted  by  the  spectacle  of  a  ballet  girl,  for  instance, 
earning  as  much  in  one  evening  by  whirling  on  her  toes 
as  a  scientist,  a  doctor,  a  lawyer,  etc.,  in  a  year’s  work. 
In  fact  to-day  the  latter  are  in  luck  if  they  do  that  well. 

Certainly,  the  arts  will  not  be  neglected  under  the 
socialist  regime,  because  socialism  wishes  life  to  be  agree¬ 
able  for  all,  instead  of  for  a  privileged  few  only,  as  it 
is  to-day;  it  will,  on  the  contrary,  give  to  all  the  arts 
a  marvelous  impulse,  and  if  it  abolishes  private  luxury 
this  will  be  all  the  more  favorable  to  the  splendor  of  the 
public  edifices. 

More  attention  will  be  paid  to^assuring  to  each  one 
remuneration  in  proportion  to  the  labor  performed.  This 
ratio  will  be  ascertained  by  taking  the  difficulty  and 
danger  of  the  labor  into  account  and  allowing  them 
to  reduce  the  time  required  for  a  given  compensation. 
If  a  peasant  in  the  open  air  can  work  seven  or  eight 


\ 


/5 


•it-'*  • 


J 

CL 


,A<.. 


I 


;  /: 


> 


d 


i:— 


vy 


—  30  — 


hours  a  day,  a  miner  ought  not  to  work  more  than  three 
or  four  hours.  And,  indeed,  when  everybody  shall 
work,  when  much  unproductive  labor  shall  be  suppressed, 
the  aggregate  of  daily  labor  to  be  distributed  among  men 
will  be  much  less  heavy  and  more  easily  endured  (by 
reason  of  the  more  abundant  food,  more  comfortable 
lodging  and  recreation  guaranteed  to  every  worker)  than 
it  is  to-day  by  those  who  toil  and  who  are  so  poorly  paid, 
and,  besides  this,  the  progress  of  science  applied  to 
industry  will  render  human  labor  less  and  less  toilsome. 

Individuals  will  apply  themselves  to  work,  although 
the  wages  or  remuneration  cannot  be  accumulated  as 
private  wealth,  because  if  the  normal,  healthy,  well-fed 
man  avoids  excessive  or  poorly  rewarded  labor,  he  does 
not  remain  in  idleness,  since  it  is  a  physiological  and 
psychological  necessity  for  him  to  devote  himself  to  a 
daily  occupation  in  harmony  with  his  capacities. 

The  different  kinds  of  sport  are  for  the  leisure  classes 
a  substitute  for  productive  labor  which  a  physiological 
necessity  imposes  upon  them,  in  order  that  they  may 
escape  the  detrimental  consequences  of  absolute  repose 
and  ennui. 

The  gravest  problem  will  be  to  proportion  the  re¬ 
muneration  to  the  labor  of  each.  You  know  that  col¬ 
lectivism  adopts  the  formula — to  jach  according  to  his 
labor,  while  communism  adopts  this  other — to  each 
according  to  his  needs. 

No  one  can  give,  in  its  practical  details ,  the  solution 
of  this  problem;  but  this  impossibility  of  predicting 
the  future  even  in  its  slightest  details  does  not  justify 
those  who  brand  socialism  as  a  utopia  incapable  of 


31 


realization.  INTo  one  could  have,  a  priori,  in  the  dawn 
of  any  civilization  predicted  its  successive  developments, 
as  I  will  demonstrate  when  I  come  to  speak  of  the 
methods  of  social  renovation. 

This  is  what  we  are  able  to  affirm  with  assurance, 
basing  our  position  on  the  most  certain  inductions  of 
psychology  and  sociology. 

It  cannot  be  denied,  as  Marx  himself  declared,  that 
this  second  formula — which  makes  it  possible  to  distin¬ 
guish,  according  to  some,  anarchy  from  socialism — rep¬ 
resents  a  more  remote  and  more  complex  ideal.  But  it 
is  equally  impossible  to  deny  that,  in  any  case,  the 
formula  of  collectivism  represents  a  phase  of  social  evolu¬ 
tion,  a  period  of  individual  discipline  which  must  neces¬ 
sarily  precede  communism.1 

There  is  no  need  to  believe  that  socialism  will  realize 
in  their  fulness  all  the  highest  possible  ideals  of  humanity 
and  that  after  its  advent  there  will  be  nothing  left  to 
desire  or  to  battle  for!  Our  descendants  would  be  con¬ 
demned  to  idleness  and  vagabondage  if  our  immediate 
ideal  was  so  perfect  and  all-inclusive  as  to  leave  them 
no  ideal  at  which  to  aim. 


1  M.  Zerboglio  has  very  justly  pointed  out  that  individual¬ 
ism  acting  without  the  pressure  of  external  sanction  and  by 
the  simple  internal  impulse  toward  good  (rightness) — this  is 
the  distant  ideal  of  Herbert  Spencer — can  be  realized  only 
after  a  phase  of  collectivism,  during  which  the  individual 
activity  and  instincts  can  be  disciplined  into  social  solidarity 
and  weaned  from  the  essentially  anarchist  individualism  of 
our  times  when  every  one,  if  he  is  clever  enough  to  “slip 
through  the  meshes  of  the  penal  code”  can  do  what  he 
pleases  without  any  regard  to  his  fellows. 

■tw-"'  - -  -C 


32 


The  individual  or  the  society  which  no  longer  has  an 
ideal  to  strive  toward  is  dead  or  about  to  die.1  The 
formula  of  communism  may  then  be  a  more  remote  ideal, 
when  collectivism  shall  have  been  completely  realized  by 
the  historical  processes  which  I  will  consider  further  on. 

We  are  now  in  a  position  to  conclude  that  there  is  no 
contradiction  between  socialism  and  Darwinism  on  the 
subject  of  the  equality  of  all  men.  Socialism  has  never 
laid  down  this  proposition  and  like  Darwinism  its  tend¬ 
ency  is  toward  a  better  life  for  individuals  and  for 
society. 

This  enables  us  also  to  reply  to  this  objection,  too 
often  repeated,  that  socialism  stifles  and  suppresses 
human  individuality  under  the  leaden  pall  of  collectivism, 
by  subjecting  individuals  to  uniform  monastic  regula¬ 
tions  and  by  making  them  into  so  many  human  bees  in 
the  social  honey-comb. 

Exactly  the  opposite  of  this  is  true.  Is  it  not  obvious 
that  it  is  under  the  present  bourgeois  organization  of 
society  that  so  many  individualities  atrophy  and  are  lost 
to  humanity,  which  under  other  conditions  might  be 
developed  to  their  own  advantage  and  to  the  advantage 
of  society  as  a  whole?  To-day,  in  fact,  apart  from  some 
rare  exceptions,  every  man  is  valued  for  what  he  possesses 
and  not  for  what  he  is.2 

He  who  is  born  poor,  obviously  by  no  fault  of  his 
own,  may  be  endowed  by  Nature  with  artistic  or  scien- 


1  “Ah,  but  a  man’s  reach  should  exceed  his  grasp,”  is  the 
way  Robert  Browning  expresses  this  in  “Andrea  Del  Sarto.” 
— Translator. 

2 Note  our  common  expression:  He  is  worth  so  much. — Tr. 


33 


tific  genius,  but  if  his  patrimony  is  insufficient  to  enable 
him  to  triumph  in  the  first  struggles  for  development 
and  to  complete  his  education,  or  if  he  has  not,  like 
the  shepherd  Giotto,  the  luck  to  meet  with  a  rich 
Cimabue,  he  must  inevitably  vanish  in  oblivion  in  the 
great  prison  of  wage-slavery,  and  society  itself  thus  loses 
treasures  of  intellectual  pfrrrrr1  , 

He  who  is  born  rich,  although  he  owes  his  fortune  to 
no  personal  exertion,  even  if  his  mental  capacity  is 
below  normal,  will  play  a  leading  role  on  the  stage  of 
life's  theatre,  and  all  servile  people  will  heap  praise 
and  flattery  upon  him,  and  he  will  imagine,  simply 
because  he  has  money,  that  he  is  quite  a  different  person 
from  what  in  reality  he  is.2 


1  “Full  many  a  gem  of  purest  ray  serene 
The  dark  unfathom’d  caves  of  ocean  bear; 

Full  many  a  flower  is  born  to  blush  unseen, 

And  waste  its  fragrance  on  the  desert  air. 

“Some  village-Hampden,  that  with  dauntless  breast 
The  little  tyrant  of  his  fields  withstood. 

Some  mute  inglorious  Milton  here  may  rest, 

Some  Cromwell,  guiltless  of  his  country’s  blood.” 

— Stanzas  from  Gray’s  “Elegy  in  a  Country  Church-yard.” 

Translator. 

2  “Cursed  be  the  gold  that  gilds  the  straighten’d  forehead  of 
the  fool!” 

— Tennyson,  in  “Locksley  Hall.” 

“Gold,  yellow,  glittering,  precious  gold! 

Thus,  much  of  this  will  make  black,  white;  foul,  fair; 

Wrong,  right;  base,  noble;  old,  young;  coward,  valiant.” 

—Shakespeare,  in  “Timon  of  Athens.”— Translator. 


When  property  shall  have  become  collective,  that  is 
to  say,  under  the  socialist  regime,  every  one  will  be 
assured  of  the  means  of  existence,  and  the  daily  labor 
will  simply  serve  to  give  free  play  to  the  special  apti¬ 
tudes,  more  or  less  original,  of  each  individual,  and  the 
best  and  most  fruitful  (potentially)  years  of  life  will 
not  be  completely  taken  up,  as  they  are  at  present,  by 
the  grievous  and  tragic  battle  for  daily  bread. 

Socialism  will  assure  to  every  one  a  human  life;  it 
will  give  each  individual  true  liberty  to  manifest  and 
develop  his  or  her  own  physical  and  intellectual  indi¬ 
viduality — individualities  which  they  bring  into  the 
world  at  birth  and  which  are  infinitely  varied  and 
unequal.  Socialism  does  not  deny  inequality;  it  merely 
wishes  to  utilize  this  inequality  as  one  of  the  factors 
leading  to  the  free,  prolific  and  many-sided  development 
of  human  life. 


35 


III. 

THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  LIFE  AND  ITS  VICTIMS. 

Socialism  and  Darwinism,  it  is  said,  are  in  conflict 
on  a  second  point.  Darwinism  demonstrates  that  the 
immense  majority — of  plants,  animals  and  men — are 
destined  to  succumb,  because  only  a  small  minority 
triumphs  “in  the  struggle  for  life”;  socialism,  on  its 
part,  asserts  that  all  ought  to  triumph  and  that  no  one 
ought  to  succumb.  —— 

It  may  be  replied,  in  the  first  place,  that,  even  in  the 
biological  domain  of  the  “struggle  for  existence,”  the 
disproportion  between  the  number  of  individuals  who  are 
born  and  the  number  of  those  who  survive  regularly  and 
progressively  grows  smaller  and  smaller  as  we  ascend  in 
the  biological  scale  from  vegetables  to  animals,  and  from 
animals  to  Man. 

This  law  of  a  decreasing  disproportion  between  the 
“called”  and  the  “chosen”  is  supported  by  the  facts  even 
if  we  limit  our  observation  to  the  various  species  belong¬ 
ing  to  the  same  natural  order.  The  higher  and  more 
complex  the  organization,  the  smaller  the  disproportion. 

In  fact,  in  the  vegetables,  each  individual  produces 
every  year  an  infinite  number  6f  seeds,  and  an  infinitesi¬ 
mal  number  of  these  survive.  In  the  animals,  the  num¬ 
ber  of  young  of  each  individual  diminishes  and  the 
number  of  those  who  survive  continues,  on  the  con- 


36 


trary,  to  increase.  Finally,  for  the  human  species,  the 
number  of  individuals  that  each  one  can  beget  is  very 
small  and  most  of  them  survive. 

But,  moreover,  in  the  cases  of  all  three,  vegetables, 
animals  and  men,  we  find  that  it  is  the  lower  and  more 
simply  organized  species,  the  races  and  classes  less 
advanced  in  the  scale  of  existence,  who  reproduce  their 
several  kinds  with  the  greatest  prolificness  and  in  which 
generation  follows  generation  most  rapidly  on  account 
of  the  brevity  of  individual  life. 

A  fern  produces  millions  of  spores,  and  its  life  is  very 
short — while  a  palm  tree  produces  only  a  few  dozen 
seeds,  and  lives  a  century. 

A  fish  produces  several  thousand  eggs — while  the 
elephant  or  the  chimpanzee  have  only  a  few  young  who 
live  many  years. 

Within  the  human  species  the  savage  races  are  the 
most  prolific  and  their  lives  are  short — while  the  civilized 
races  have  a  low  birth-rate  and  live  longer. 

From  all  this  it  follows  that,  even  confining  ourselves 
to  the  purely  biological  domain,  the  number  of  victors 
in  the  struggle  for  existence  constantly  tends  to  approach 
nearer  and  nearer  to  the  number  of  births  with  the 
advance  or  ascent  in  the  biological  scale  from  vegetables 
to  animals,  from  animals  to  men,  and  from  the  lower 
species  or  varieties  to  the  higher  species  or  varieties. 

The  iron  law  of  “the  struggle  for  existence,”  then, 
constantly  reduces  the  number  of  the  victims  forming 
its  hecatomb  with  the  ascent  of  the  biological  scale,  and 
the  rate  of  decrease  becomes  more  and  more  rapid  as 
the  forms  of  life  become  more  complex  and  more  perfect. 


37 


L 


x 


0- 


It  would  then  be  a  mistake  to  invoke  against  socialism 
the  Darwinian  law  of  Natural  Selection  in  the  form 
under  which  that  law  manifests  itself  in  the  primitive 
(or  lower)  forms  of  life,  without  taking  into  account  its 
continuous  attenuation  as  we  pass  from  vegetables  to  ani¬ 
mals,  from  animals  to  men,  and  within  humanity  itself, 
from  the  primitive  races  to  the  more  advanced  races. 

(And  as  socialism  represents  a  yet  more  advanced  phase 
of  human  progress,  it  is  still  less  allowable  to  use  as  an 
objection  to  it  such  a  gross  and  inaccurate  interpretation  :>  v- 
of  the  Darwinian  law^  \  & 

It  is  certain  that  the  opponents  of  socialism  have  made 
a  wrong  use  of  the  Darwinian  law  or  rather  of  its  “brutal” 
interpretation  in  order  to  justify  modern  individualist 
competition  which  is  too  often  only  a  disguised  form 
of  cannibalism,  and  which  has  made  the  maxim  homo 
homini  lupus  (man  to  man  a  wolf;  or,  freely,  “man  eats 
man”)  the  characteristic  motto  of  our  era,  while  Hobbes 
only  made  it  the  ruling  principle  of  the  “state  of  nature 
of  mankind,  before  the  making  of  the  “social  contract. 

But  because  a  principle  has  been  abused  or  misused 
we  are  not  justified  in  concluding  that  the  principle 
itself  is  false.  Its  abuse  often  serves  as  an  incentive 
to  define  its  nature  and  its  limitations  more  accurately, 
so  that  in  practice  it  may  be  applied  more  correctly.  This 
will  be  the  result  of  my  demonstration  of  the  perfect 
harmony  that  reigns  between  socialism  and  Darwinism. 

As  long  ago  as  thedirst  edition  of  my  work  Socialismo 
e  Criminalita  (pages  179  et  seq.)  I  maintained  that  the 
struggle  for  existence  is  a  law  immanent  in  the  human 
race,  as  it  is  a  law  of  all  living  beings,  although  its 


\  K 


/ 

/ 


I 


♦ 


forms  continually  change  and  though  it  undergoes  more 
and  more  attenuation. 

This  is  still  the  way  it  appears  to  me,  and  consequently, 
on  this  point  I  disagree  with  some  socialists  who  have 
thought  they  could  triumph  more  completely  over  the 
objection  urged  against  them  in  the  name  of  Darwinism 
by  declaring  that  in  human  society  the  “struggle  for 
existence”  is  a  law  which  is  destined  to  lose  all  meaning 
and  applicability  when  the  social  transformation  at  which 
socialism  aims  shall  have  been  effected.1 

It  is  a  law  which  dominates  tyrannically  all  living 
beings,  and  it  must  cease  to  act  and  fall  inert  at  the 
feet  of  Man,  as  if  he  were*h$%  merely  a  link  inseparable 
|  from  the  great  biological  chainl  % 

I  maintained,  and  I  still  maintain,  that  the  struggle 
for  existence  is  a  law  inseparable  from  life,  and  conse¬ 
quently  from  humanity  itself,  but  that,  though  remain¬ 
ing  an  inherent  and  constant  law,  it  is  gradually  trans¬ 
formed  in  its  essence  and  attenuated  in  its  forms. 

Among  primitive  mankind  the  struggle  for  existence 
is  but  slightly  differentiated  from  that  which  obtains 
among  the  other  animals.  It  is  the  brutal  struggle  for 
daily  food  or  for  possession  of  the  females — hunger  and 
love  are,  in  fact,  the  two  fundamental  needs  and  the 
two  poles  of  life — and  almost  its  only  method  is  muscular 
violence.  In  a  more  advanced  phase  there  is  joined  to 
this  basic  struggle  the  struggle  for  political  supremacy 
(in  the  clan,  in  the  tribe,  in  the  village,  in  the  commune, 


1  Such  socialists  are 
COLAJANNI. 


39 


in  the  State),  and,  more  and  more,  muscular  struggle 
is  superseded  by  intellectual  struggle. 

(in  the  historical  period  the  Graeco-Latin  society 
struggled  for  civil  equality  (the  abolition  of  slavery);  it 
triumphed,  but  it  did  not  halt,  because  to  live  is  to 
struggle;  the  society  of  the  middle  ages  struggled  for 
religious  equality;  it  won  the  battle,  but  it  did  not  halt; 
and  at  the  end  of  the  last  century,  it  struggled  for 
political  equality.  Must  it  now  halt  and  remain  stationary 
in  the  present  state  of  progress?  To-day  society  struggles 
for  economic  equality,  not  for  an  absolute  material 
equality,  but  for  that  more  practical,  truer  equality  of 
which  I  have  already  spoken.  And  all  the  evidence 
enables  us  to  foresee  with  mathematical  certainty  that 
this  victory  will  be  won  to  give  place  to  new  struggles 
and  to  new  ideals  among  our  descendants^ 

The  successive  changes  in  the  subject-matter  (or  the 
ideals)  of  the  struggles  for  existence  are  accompanied 
by  a  progressive  mitigation  of  the  methods  of  combat. 
Violent  and  muscular  at  first,  the  struggle  is  becoming, 
more  and  more,  pacific  and  intellectual,  notwithstanding 
some  atavic  recurrences  of  earlier  methods  or  some 
psycho-pathological  manifestations  of  individual  violence 
against  society  and  of  social  violence  against  individuals. 

The  remarkable  work  of  Mr.  Novicow1  has  recently 
given  a  signal  confirmation  to  my  opinion,  although 
Novicow  has  not  taken  the  sexual  struggle  into  account. 


1  Novicow,  Les  luttes  entre  socUUs,  lews  phases  succes- 
sives,  Paris,  1893.  Lerda,  La  lotta  per  la  vita,  in  Pensiero 
italiano,  Milan,  Feb.  and  March,  1894. 


I  will  develop  my  demonstration  more  fully  in  the 
chapter  devoted  to  I’avenir  moral  de  Vhumanite  (the  intel¬ 
lectual  future  of  humanity),  in  the  second  edition  of 
Socialismo  e  Criminalitd. 

(Tor  the  moment  I  have  sufficiently  replied  to  the  anti¬ 
socialist  objection,  since  I  have  shown  not  merely  that 
the  disproportion  between  the  number  of  births  and  the 
number  of  those  who  survive  tends  to  constantly  dimin¬ 
ish,  but  also  that  the  “struggle  for  existence”  itself 
changes  in  its  essence  and  grows  milder  in  its  processes 
at  each  successive  phase  of  the  biological  and  social 
evolution.) 

Socialism  may  then  insist  that  human  conditions  of 
existence  ought  to  be  guaranteed  to  all  men — in  exchange 
for  labor  furnished  to  collective  society — without  thereby 
contradicting  the  Darwinian  law  of  the  survival  of  the 
victors  in  the  struggle  for  existence,  since  this  Darwinian 
law  ought  to  be  understood  and  applied  in  each  of  its 
varying  manifestations,  in  harmony  with  the  law  of 
human  progress. 

Socialism,  scientifically  understood,  does  not  deny,  and 
cannot  deny,  that  among  mankind  there  are  always  some 
“losers”  in  the  struggle  for  existence. 

This  question  is  more  directly  connected  with  the  rela¬ 
tions  which  exist  between  socialism  and  criminality,  since 
those  who  contend  that  the  struggle  for  existence  is  a 
law  which  does  not  apply  to  human  society,  declare, 
accordingly,  that  crime  (an  abnormal  and  anti-social 
form  of  the  struggle  for  life,  just  as  labor  is  its  normal 
and  social  form)  is  destined  to  disappear.  Likewise  they 
think  they  discover  a  certain  contradiction  between 


41 


socialism  and  the  teachings  of  criminal  anthropology  con¬ 
cerning  the  congenital  criminal,  though  these  teachings 
are  also  deducted  from  Darwinism.1 

I  reserve  this  question  for  fuller  treatment  elsewhere. 
Here  is  in  brief  my  thought  as  a  socialist  and  as  a 
criminal  anthropologist. 

In  the  first  place  the  school  of  scientific  criminologists 
deal  with  life  as  it  now  is — and  undeniably  it  has  the 
merit  of  having  applied  the  methods  of  experimental 
science  to  the  study  of  criminal  phenomena,  of  having 
shown  the  hypocritical  absurdity  of  modern  penal  sys¬ 
tems  based  on  the  notion  of  free-will  and  moral  delin¬ 
quency  and  resulting  in  the  system  of  cellular  confine¬ 
ment,  one  of  the  mental  aberrations  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  as  I  have  elsewhere  qualified  it.  In  its  stead 
the  criminologists  wish  to  substitute  the  simple  segrega¬ 
tion  of  individuals  who  are  not  fitted  for  social  life  on 
account  of  pathological  conditions  nrvncrpni-ta.1  nr 


acquired,  permanent  or  transitory. 
In  the  second  place,  to  contend 


cause  the  disappearance  of  all  forms  of  crime  is  to  act< 
upon  the  impulse  of  a  generous  sentiment,  but  the  con- 


1 1  regret  that  M.  Loria,  ordinarily  so  profound  and  acute, 
has  here  been  deceived  by  appearances.  He  has  pointed  out 
this  pretended  contradiction  in  his  “Economic  Foundations 
of  Society”  (available  in  English,  Tr.).  He  has  been  com¬ 
pletely  answered,  in  the  name  of  the  school  of  scientific  crim¬ 
inal  anthropology,  by  M.  Rivieri  de  Rocchi,  II  diritto 
penale  e  un’opera  recente  di  Loria  in  Scuola  positiva  nella 
giurisprudenza  penale  of  Feb.  15,  1894,  and  by  M.  Lombroso, 
in  Archivio  di  psichiatria  e  scienza  penali,  1894,  XIV.  fasc.  C. 


42 


tention  is  not  supported  by  a  rigorously  scientific  obser¬ 
vation  of  the  facts. 

The  scientific  school  of  criminology  demonstrates  that 
crime  is  a  natural  and  social  phenomenon — like  insanity 
and  suicide — determined  by  the  abnormal,  organic  and 
psychological  constitution  of  the  delinquent  and  by  the 
influences  of  the  physical  and  social  environment.  The 
anthropological,  physical  and  social  factors,  all,  always, 
act  concurrently  in  the  determination  of  all  offences, 
the  lightest  as  well  as  the  gravest — as,  moreover,  they  do 
in  the  case  of  all  other  human  actions.  What  varies  in 
the  case  of  each  delinquent  and  each  offense,  is  the 
decisive  intensity  of  each  order  of  factors.1 

For  instance,  if  the  case  in  point  is  an  assassination 
committed  through  jealousy  or  hallucination,  it  is  the 
anthropological  factor  which  is  the  most  important, 
although  nevertheless  consideration  must  also  be  paid 

1  Enrico  Perri,  Sociologie  criminelle  (French  translation), 
1893,  Chaps.  I.  and  II. 

A  recent  work  has  just  given  scientific  confirmation  to  our 
inductions:  Forsinari  Di  Verce,  Sulla  criminalita  e  le  vicende 
economiche  d'ltalia  dal  1873  al  1890.  Turin,  1894.  The  preface 
written  by  Lombroso  concludes  in  the  following  words: 
“We  do  not  wish,  therefore,  to  slight  or  neglect  the  truth  of 
the  socialist  movement,  which  is  destined  to  change  the 
current  of  modern  European  thought  and  action,  and  which 
contends  ad  major em  gloriam  of  its  conclusions  that  all  crim¬ 
inality  depends  on  the  influence  of  the  economic  environ¬ 
ment.  We  also  believe  in  this  doctrine,  though  we  are 
unwilling  and  unable  to  accept  the  erroneous  conclusions 
drawn  from  it.  However  enthusiastic  we  may  be,  we  will 
never,  in  its  honor,  renounce  the  truth.  We  leave  this  useless 
servility  to  the  upholders  of  classical  orthodoxy.” 


43 


to  the  physical  environment  and  the  social  environment. 
If  it  is  a  question,  on  the  contrary,  of  crimes  against 
property  or  even  against  persons,  committed  by  a  riotous 
mob  or  induced  by  alcoholism,  etc.,  it  is  the  social 
environment  which  becomes  the  preponderating  factor, 
though  it  is,  notwithstanding,  impossible  to  deny  the 
influence  of  the  physical  environment  and  of  the  an¬ 
thropological  factor. 

We  may  repeat  the  same  reasoning — in  order  to  make 
a  complete  examination  of  the  objection  brought  against 
socialism  in  the  name  of  Darwinism — on  the  subject  of 
the  ordinary  diseases;  crime,  moreover,  is  a  department 
of  human  pathology. 

All  diseases,  acute  or  chronic,  infectious  or  not  infec¬ 
tious,  severe  or  mild,  are  the  product  of  the  anthropologi¬ 
cal  constitution  of  the  individual  and  of  the  influence  of 
the  physical  and  social  environment.  The  decisiveness 
of  the  personal  conditions  or  of  the  environment  varies 
in  the  various  diseases;  phthisis  or  heart  disease,  for 
instance,  depend  principally  on  the  organic  constitution 
of  the  individual,  though  it  is  necessary  to  take  the 
influence  of  the  environment  into  account;  pellagra,1 
cholera,  typhus,  etc.,  on  the  contrary,  depend  principally 
on  the  physical  and  social  conditions  of  the  environment. 
And  so  phthisis  makes  its  ravages  even  among  well- 
to-do  people,  that  is  to  say,  among  persons  well  nourished 
and  well  housed,  while  it  is  the  badly  nourished,  that 
is  to  say,  e  poor,  who  furnish  the  greatest  number  of 
victims  to  pellagra  and  cholera. 


1  A  skin-disense  endemic  in  Northern  Italy.  Tr. 


;  *4* 

Ct^Q  A ^  ^  A^~  4  1  ^ 

-  44  — 


AO 


£* 


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r 


r 


It  is,  consequently,  evident  that  a  socialist  regime  of 
collective  property  which  shall  assure  to  every  one  human 
conditions  of  existence,  will  largely  diminish  or  possibly 
annihilate — aided  by  the  scientific  discoveries  and  im¬ 
provement  in  hygienic  measures — the  diseases  which  are 
principally  caused  by  the  conditions  of  the  environment, 
that  is  to  say  by  insufficient  nourishment  or  by  the  want 
of  protection  from  inclemency  of  the  weather;  but  we 
shall  not  witness  the  disappearance  of  the  diseases  due 
to  traumatic  injuries,  imprudence,  pulmonary  affec¬ 
tions,  etc. 


The  same  conclusions  are  valid  regarding  crime.  If 
we  suppress  poverty  and  the  shocking  inequality  of 
economic  conditions,  hunger,  acute  and  chronic,  will  no 
longer  serve  as  a  stimulus  to  crime.  Better  nourishment 
will  bring  about  a  physical  and  moral  improvement.  The 
abuses  of  power  and  of  wealth  will  disappear,  and  there 
will  be  a  considerable  diminution  in  the  number  of  crimes 
due  to  circumstances  ( crimes  d’occasion),  crimes  caused 
principally  by  the  social  environment.  But  there  are 
some  crimes  which  will  not  disappear,  such  as  revolting 
crimes  against  decency  due  to  a  pathological  perversion 
of  the  sexual  instinct,  homicides  induced  by  epilepsy, 
thefts  which  result  from  a  psycho-pathological  degen¬ 
eration,  etc. 

For  the  same  reasons  popular  education  will  be  more 
widely  diffused,  talents  of  every  kind  will  be  able  to 
develop  and  manifest  themselves  freely;  but  this  will 
not  cause  the  disappearance  of  idiocy  and  imbecility  due 
to  hereditary  pathological  conditions.  Nevertheless  it 
will  be  possible  for  different  causes  to  have  a  preventive 


45 


and  mitigating  influence  on  the  various  forms  of  con¬ 
genital  degeneration  (ordinary  diseases,  criminality, 
insanity  and  nervous  disorders).  Among  these  preven¬ 
tive  influences  may  be:  a  better  economic  and  social 
organization,  the  prudential  counsels,  constantly  growing 
in  efficacy  given  by  experimental  biology,  and  less  and 
less  frequent  procreation,  by  means  of  voluntary  absten¬ 
tion,  in  cases  of  hereditary  disease. 

To  conclude  we  will  say  that,  even  under  the  socialist 
regime — although  they  will  be  infinitely  fewer — there 
will  always  be  some  who  will  be  vanquished  in  the 
struggle  for  existence1 — these  will  be  the  victims  of.  weak- 
ness,  of  disease,  of  dissipation,  of  nervous  disorders,  of 
suicide.  We  may  then  affirm  that  socialism  does  not 
deny  the  Darwinian  law  of  the  struggle  for  'existence. 
Socialism  will,  however,  have  this  indisputable  advan¬ 
tage — the  epidemic  or  endemic  forms  of  human  degen¬ 
eracy  will  be  entirely  suppressed  by  the  elimination  of 
their  principal  cause — the  physical  poverty  and  (its 
necessary  consequence)  the  mental  suffering  of  the 
majority. 

Then  the  struggle  for  existence,  while  remaining 
always  the  driving  power  of  the  life  of  society,  will 
assume  forms  less  and  less  brutal  and  more  and  more 
humane.  It  will  become  an  intellectual  struggle.  Its 
ideal  of  physiological  and  intellectual  progress  will  con¬ 
stantly  grow  in  grandeur  and  sublimity  when  this  pro¬ 
gressive  idealization  of  the  ideal  shall  be  made  possible 
by  the  guarantee  to  every  one  of  daily  bread  for  the 
body  and  the  mind. 

The  law  of  the  “struggle  for  life”  must  not  cause 


JJ 

4^"  & 


us  to  forget  another  law  of  natural  and  social  Darwinian 
evolution.  It  is  true  many  socialists  have  given  to  this 
latter  law  an  excessive  and  exclusive  importance,  just 
as  some  individuals  have  entirely  neglected  it.  I  refer 
to  the  law  of  solidarity  which  knits  together  all  the  living 
beings  of  one  and  the  same  species — for  instance  ani¬ 
mals  who  live  gregariously  in  consequence  of  the  abun¬ 
dance  of  the  supply  of  their  common  food  (herbivorous 
animals) — or  even  of  different  species.  When  species 
thus  mutually  aid  each  other  to  live  they  are  called  by 
naturalists  symbiotic  species,  and  instead  of  the  struggle 
for  life  we  have  co-operation  for  life. 

It  is  incorrect  to  state  that  the  struggle  for  life  is  the 
sole  sovereign  law  in  Nature  and  society,  just  as  it  is 
false  to  contend  that  this  law  is  wholly  inapplicable  to 
human  society.  The  real  truth  is  that  even  in  human 
society  the  struggle  for  life  is  an  eternal  law  which  grows 
progressively  milder  in  its  methods  and  more  elevated  in 
its  ideals.  But  operating  concurrently  with  this  we  find 
a  law,  the  influence  of  which  upon  the  social  evolution 
constantly  increases,  the  law  of  solidarity  or  co-operation 
between  living  beings. 

Even  in  animal  societies  mutual  aid  against  the  forces 
of  Nature,  or  against  other  animals  is  of  constant  ocur- 
rence,  and  this  is  carried  much  further  among  human 
beings,  even  among  savage  tribes.  One  notes  this 
phenomenon  especially  in  tribes  which  on  account  of 
the  favorable  character  of  their  environment,  or  because 
their  subsistence  is  assured  and  abundant,  become  of  the 
industrial  or  peaceful  type.  The  military  or  warlike 
type  which  is  unhappily  predominant  (on  account  of  the 


47 


uncertainty  and  insufficiency  of  subsistence)  among 
primitive  mankind  and  in  reactionary  phases  of  civiliza¬ 
tion,  presents  us  with  less  frequent  examples  of  it.  The 
industrial  type  constantly  tends,  moreover,  as  Spencer 
has  shown,  to  take  the  place  of  the  warlike  type.1 


Confining  ourselves  to  human  society  alone,  we  will 
say  that,  while  in  the  first  stages  of  the  social  evolution 
the  law  of  the  struggle  for  life  takes  precedence  over 
the  law  of  solidarity,  with  the  growth  within  the  social 
organism  of  the  division  of  labor  which  binds  the  various 
parts  of  the  social  whole  more  closely  together  in  inter¬ 
dependence,  the  struggle  for  life  grows  milder  and  is 
metamorphosed,  and  the  law  of  co-operation  or  solidarity 
gains  more  and  more  both  in  efficiency  and  in  the  range 
of  its  influence,  and  this  is  due  to  that  fundamental 
reason  that  Marx  pointed  out,  and  which  constitutes  his 
great  scientific  discovery,  the  reason  that  in  the  one  case 
the  conditions  of  existence — food  especially — are  not 
assured,  and  in  the  other  case  they  are. 


In  the  lives  of  individuals  as  in  the  life  of  societies, 
when  the  means  of  subsistence,  that  is  to  say,  the  physical 
basis  of  existence,  are  assured,  the  law  of  solidarity  takes 
precedence  over  the  law  of  the  struggle  for  existence, 
and  when  they  are  not  assured,  the  contrary  is  true. 


n  > 

JV 


M 


1  See  in  this  connection  the  famous  monographs  of  (  ( :  , 

Kropotkin,  Mutual  aid  among  the  savages,  in  the  “Nineteenth 
Century,”  April  9,  1891,  and  Among  the  barbarians,  “Nine-  * 
teenth  Century,”  January,  1892,  and  also  two  recent  articles 
signed:  “Un  Professeur,”  which  appeared  in  the  Revue  So- 
cialiste,  of  Paris,  May  and  June,  1894,  under  the  title:  Lutte 
ou  accord  pour  la  vie.  *7* ■-'**'7 


r 


/  0 

I 

/ 


.  7 


t; 


W" 


/ 


v 


V- 


re 


/■-j  Q. . 


.,  ,€*  v 


-••? 


48 


^Among  savages,  infanticide  and  parricide  are  not  only 
permitted  but  are  obligatory  and  sanctioned  by  religion 
if  the  tribe  inhabits  an  island  where  food  is  scarce  (for 
instance,  in  Polynesia),  and  they  are  immoral  and  crimi¬ 
nal  acts  on  continents  where  the  food  supply  is  more 
abundant  and  certain.1  j 

Just  so,  in  our  present  society,  as  the  majority  of 
individuals  are  not  sure  of  getting  their  daily  bread,  the 
struggle  for  life,  or  “free  competition,”  as  the  individual¬ 
ists  call  it,  assumes  more  cruel  and  more  brutal  forms. 

Just  as  soon  as  through  collective  ownership  every 
individual  shall  be  assured  of  fitting  conditions  of  exist¬ 
ence,  the  law  of  solidarity  will  become  preponderant. 
f|When.  in  a  family  financial  affairs  run  smoothly  and 
prosperously,  harmony  and  mutual  good-will  prevail;  as 
soon  as  poverty  makes  its  appearance,  discord  and  strug¬ 
gle  ensue.  Society  as  a  whole  shows  us  the  picture  on  a 
large  scale.  x4  better  social  organization  will  insure  uni¬ 
versal  harmonyjmd  mutual  good-will.^ 

This  will  be  the  achievement  of  socialism,  and,  to 
repeat,  for  this,  the  fullest  and  most  fruitful  inter¬ 
pretation  of  the  inexorable  natural  laws  discovered  by 
Darwinism,  we  are  indebted  to  socialism. 


-A  \  | 


aIa; 


1  Enrico  Ferri,  Omicidio  nelV  antropologia  criminate,  In¬ 
troduction,  Turin,  189  4. 


/  s*-  ;  -A 


I* 


i; 


49  — 


IV. 


THE  SURVIVAL  OF  THE  FITTEST. 

The  third  and  last  part  of  the  argument  of  Haeckel 
is  correct  if  applied  solely  to  the  purely  biological  and 
Darwinian  domain,  but  its  starting  point  is  false  if  it  is 
intended  to  apply  it  to  the  social  domain  and  to  turn 
it  into  an  objection  against  socialism. 

It  is  said  the  struggle  for  existence  assures  the  sur¬ 
vival  of  the  fittest;  it  therefore  causes  an  aristocratic, 
hierarchic  gradation  of  selected  individuals — a  continu¬ 
ous  progress — and  not  the  democratic  leveling  of  social¬ 
ism. 

Here  again,  let  us  begin  by  accurately  ascertaining  the 
nature  of  this  famous  natural  selection  which  results 
from  the  struggle  for  existence. 

The  expression  which  Haeckel  uses  and  which,  more¬ 
over,  is  in  current  use,  “survival  of  the  best  or  of  the  best 
fitted,”  ought  to  be  corrected.  We  must  suppress  the 
adjective  best .  This  is  simply  a  persisting  relic  of  that 
teleology  which  used  to  see  in  Nature  and  history  a 
premeditated  goal  to  be  reached  by  means  of  a  process 
of  continuous  amelioration  or  progress. 

Darwinism,  on  the  contrary,  and  still  more  the  theory 
of  universal  evolution,  has  completely  banished  the 
notion  of  final  causes  from  modern  scientific  thought 
and  from  the  interpretation  of  natural  phenomena.  Evo- 


£*j^AS '**'"*' 


&***+- jf 

.4-'  •!_  50  '  ll  ' 

lution  consists  both  of  involution  and  dissolution.  It 
may  be  true,  and  indeed  it  is  true,  that  by  comparing 
the  two  extremes  of  the  path  traversed  by  humanity  we 
find  that  there  has  really  been  a  true  progress,  an  im¬ 
provement  taking  it  all  in  all;  but,  in  any  case,  progress 
has  not  followed  a  straight  ascending  line,  but,  as  Goethe 
has  said,  a  spiral  with  rhythms  of  progress  and  of  retro¬ 
gression,  of  evolution  and  of  dissolution. 

Every  cycle  of  evolution,  in  the  individual  life  as  in 
the  collective  life,  bears  within  it  the  germs  of  the  cor¬ 
responding  cycle  of  dissolution;  and,  inversely,  the  latter, 
by  the  decay  of  the  form  already  worn  out,  prepares  in 
the  eternal  laboratory  new  evolutions  and  new  forms  of 
life. 

(  It  is  thus  that  in  the  world  of  human  society  every 
phase  of  civilization  bears  within  it  and  is  constantly 
developing  the  germs  of  its  own  dissolution  from  which 
issues  a  new  phase  of  civilization — which  will  be  more 
or  less  different  from  its  predecessor  in  geographical 
situation  and  range — in  the  eternal  rhythm  of  living 
humanity.  The  ancient  hieratic  civilizations  of  the 
Orient  decay,  and  through  their  dissolution  they  give 
birth  to  the  Graeco-Boman  world,  which  in  turn  is  fol¬ 
lowed  by  the  feudal  and  aristocratic  civilization  of  Cen¬ 
tral  Europe;  it  also  decays  and  disintegrates  through  its 
own  excesses,  like  the  preceding  civilizations,  and  it  is 
replaced  by  the  bourgeois  civilization  which  has  reached 
its  culminating  point  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  world.  But 
it  is  already  experiencing  the  first  tremors  of  the  fever 
of  dissolution,  while  from  its  womb  there  emerges  and 
is  developing  the  socialist  civilization  which  will  flourish 


Kj  '  J 


1 


ft  A 


r>  Jr 

V-"i  -A,*  Xs. 


!! 


& 


over  a  vaster  domain  than  that  of  any  of  the  civilizations 


which  have  preceded  it.1  j 


Hence  it  is  not  correct  to  assert  that  the  natural 
selection  caused  by  the  struggle  for  existence  assures 
the  survival  of  the  best;  in  fact,  it  assures  the  survival 
of  the  best  fitted. 

This  is  a  very  great  difference,  alike  in  natural  Darwin¬ 
ism  and  in  social  Darwinism. 

The  struggle  for  existence  necessarily  causes  the  sur¬ 
vival  of  the  individuals  best  fitted  for  the  environment 
and  the  particular  historical  period  in  which  they  live. 

In  the  natural,  biological  domain,  the  free  play  of 
natural  (cosmiques)  forces  and  conditions  causes  a  pro¬ 
gressive  advance  or  ascent  of  living  forms,  from  the 
microbe  up  to  Man. 

In  human  society,  on  the  contrary,  that  is  to  say,  in 
the  super-organic  evolution  of  Herbert  Spencer,  the 
intervention  of  other  forces  and  the  occurrence  of  other 
conditions  sometimes  causes  a  retrograde  selection  which 
always  assures  the  survival  of  those  who  are  best  fitted 
for  a  given  environment  at  a  given  time,  but  the  con¬ 
trolling  principle  of  this  selection  is  in  turn  affected  by 
the  vicious  conditions — if  they  are  vicious — of  the 


environment. 


Here  we  are  dealing  with  the  question  of  “social 
selection,”  or  rather  “social  selections,”  for  there  is  more 


than  one  kind  of  social  selection.  By  starting  from  this 


1  One  of  the  most  characteristic  processes  of  social  dis¬ 
solution  is  parasitism.  Massart  and  Vandervelde,  Para¬ 
sitism,  organic  and  social.  (English  translation.)  Swan, 
Sonnenschein  &  Co.,  London. 


itS , 


/ 


idea — not  clearly  comprehended — some  writers,  both 
socialists  and  non-socialists,  have  come  to  deny  that  the 
Darwinian  theories  have  any  application  to  human 
society. 

( It  is  known,  indeed,  that  in  the  contemporaneous 
civilized  world  natural  selection  is  injuriously  inter¬ 
fered  with  by  military  selection,  by  matrimonial  selec¬ 
tion,  and,  above  all,  by  economic  selection.1  / 

The  temporary  celibacy  imposed  upon  soldiers  cer¬ 
tainly  has  a  deplorable  effect  upon  the  human  race.  It 
is  the  young  men  who  on  account  of  comparatively  poor 
physical  constitutions  are  excused  from  military  service, 
who  marry  the  first,  while  the  healthier  individuals  are 
condemned  to  a  transitory  sterility,  and  in  the  great 
cities  run  the  risk  of  contagion  from  syphilis  which 
unfortunately  has  permanent  effects. 

Marriage  also,  corrupted  as  it  is  in  the  existent  society 
by  economic  considerations,  is  ordinarily  in  practice  a 
sort  of  retrogressive  sexual  selection.  Women  who  are 
true  degenerates,  but  who  have  good  dowries  or  “pros¬ 
pects,”  readily  find  husbands  on  the  marriage  market, 
while  the  most  robust  women  of  the  people  or  of  the 
middle  class  who  have  no  dowries  are  condemned  to  the 


1  Broca,  Les  selections  (§  6.  Les  selections  sociales)  in 
Memoires  d ’  anthropologie,  Paris,  1877,  III.,  205.  Lapouge, 
Les  selections  sociales,  in  Revue  d’  anthrop.,  1887,  p.  519.  Loria, 
Discorse  su  Carlo  Darwin,  Sienne,  1882.  Vadala,  Darwinismo 
naturale  e  Darwinismo  sociale,  Turin,  1883.  Bordier,  La  vie 
des  socUtes,  Paris,  1887.  Sergi,  Le  degenerazione  umane, 
Milan,  1889,  p.  158.  Bebel,  Woman  in  the  past,  present  and 
future. 


53 


sterility  of  compulsory  old-maiddom  or  to  surrender 
themselves  to  a  more  or  less  gilded  prostitution.1 

It  is  indisputable  that  the  present  economic  conditions 
exercise  an  influence  upon  all  the  social  relations  of  men. 
The  monopoly/of  wealth  assures  to  its  possessor  the  vic¬ 
tory  in  the  struggle  for  existence.  Kich  people,  even 
though  they  are  less  robust,  have  longer  lives  than  those 
who  are  ill-fed.  The  day-and-night-work,  under  in¬ 
human  conditions,  imposed  upon  grown  men,  and  the 
still  more  baleful  labor  imposed  upon  women  and  chil¬ 
dren  by  modern  capitalism  causes  a  constant  deteriora¬ 
tion  in  the  biological  conditions  of  the  toiling  masses.2 

fin  addition  to  all  these  we  must  not  forget  the  moral 
selection — which  is  really  immoral  or  retrograde — made 
at  present  by  capitalism  in  its  struggle  with  the  prole¬ 
tariat,  and  which  favors  the  survival  of  those  with  servile 
characters,  while  it  persecutes  and  strives  to  suppress  all 
those  who  are  strong  in  character,  and  all  who  do  not 

1  Max  Nordau,  Conventional  Lies  of  our  Civilization. 
(English  trans.)  Laird  &  Lee,  Chicago,  1895. 

8  While  this  is  shown  by  all  official  statistics,  it  is  sig- 
rally  shown  by  the  facts  collated  by  M.  Pagliani,  the  present 
Director-General  of  the  Bureau  of  Health  in  the  Interior 
Department,  who  has  shown  that  the  bodies  of  the  poor  are 
more  backward  and  less  developed  than  those  of  the  rich, 
and  that  this  difference,  though  but  slightly  manifest  at 
birth,  becomes  greater  and  greater  in  after  life,  i.  e.,  as  soon 
as  the  influence  of  the  economic  conditions  makes  itself  felt 
in  all  its  inexorable  tyranny. 


seem  disposed  to  tamely  submit  to  the  yoke  of  the  present 
economic  order.1  j 

The  first  impression  which  springs  from  the  recog¬ 
nition  of  these  facts  is  that  the  Darwinian  law  of  natural 
selection  does  not  hold  good  in  human  society — in  short, 
is  inapplicable  to  human  society. 

I  have  maintained,  and  I  do  maintain,  on  the  con¬ 
trary,  in  the  first  place,  that  these  various  kinds  of 
retrograde  social  selection  are  not  in  contradiction  with 
the  Darwinian  law,  and  that,  moreover,  they  serve  as 
the  material  for  an  argument  in  favor  of  socialism. 
Nothing  but  socialism,  in  fact,  can  make  this  inexorable 
law  of  natural  selection  work  more  beneficentlv. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Darwinian  law  does  not  cause 
the  “survival  of  the  best”  but  simply  the  “survival  of 
the  fittest” 

It  is  obvious  that  the  forms  of  degeneracy  produced 
by  the  divers  kinds  of  social  selection  and  notably  by  the 
present  economic  organization  merely  promote,  indeed, 
and  with  growing  efficiency,  the  survival  of  those  best 
fitted  for  this  very  economic  organization. 

If  the  victors  in  the  struggle  for  existence  are  the 
worst  and  the  weakest,  this  does  not  mean  that  the 
Darwinian  law  does  not  hold  good;  it  means  simply 
that  the  environment  is  corrupt  (and  corrupting),  and 
that  those  who  survive  are  precisely  those  who  are  the 
fittest  for  this  corrupt  environment. 

In  my  studies  of  criminal  psychology  I  have  too  often 

1  Ttjkati,  Selezione  servile,  in  Gritica  Sociale,  June  1,  1894. 
Sergi,  Degenerazione  umane,  Milan,  1889. 


had  to  recognize  the  fact  that  in  prisons  and  in  the  crimi¬ 
nal  world  it  is  the  most  cruel  or.  tha  most  cunning 
criminals  who  enjoy  the  fruits  of  victory;  it  is  just  the 
same  in  our  modern  economic  individualist  system;  the 
victory  goes  to  him  who  has  the  fewest  scruples;  the 
struggle  for  existence  favors  him  who  is  fittest  for  a 
world  where  a  man  is  valued  for  what  he  has  (no  matter 
how  he  got  it),  and  not  for  what  he  is. 

The  Darwinian  law  of  natural  selection  functions,  then 
even  in  human  society.  The  error  of  those  who  deny 
this  proposition  springs  from  the  fact  that  they  con¬ 
found  the  present  environment  and  the  present  transitory 
historical  era. — which  are  known  in  history  as  the  bour¬ 
geois  environment  and  period,  just  as  the  Middle  Ages 
are  called  feudal — with  all  history  and  all  humanity, 
and  therefore  they  fail  to  see  that  the  disastrous  effects 
of  modern,  retrograde,  social  selection  are  only  confirma¬ 
tions  of  the  Darwinian  law  of  the  “survival  of  the  fittest.” 
Popular  common  sense  has  long  recognized  this  influence 
of  the  surroundings,  as  is  shown  by  many  a  common 
proverb,  and  its  scientific  explanation  is  to  be  found  in 
the  necessary  biological  relations  which  exist  between  a 
given  environment  and  the  individuals  who  are  born, 
struggle  and  survive  in  that  environment. 

On  the  other  hand,  this  truth  constitutes  an  unan¬ 
swerable  argument  in  favor  of  socialism.  By  freeing  the 
environment  from  all  the  corruptiojis  with  which  our 
unbridled  economic  individualism  pollutes  it,  socialism 
will  necessarily  correct  the  ill  effects  of  natural  and 
social  selection.  In  a  physically  and  morally  wholesome 
environment,  the  individuals  best  fitted  to  it,  those  who 


will  therefore  survive,  will  be  the  physically  and  morally 
healthy. 

In  the  struggle  for  existence  the  victory  will  then  go 
to  him  Who  has  the  greatest  and  most  prolific  physical, 
intellectual  and  moral  energies.  The  collectivist  eco- 
nomic  organization,  by  assuring  to  everyone  the  condi¬ 
tions  of  existence,  will  and  necessarily  must,  result  in  the 
physical  and  moral  improvement  of  the  human  race. 

To  this  some  one  replies:  Suppose  we  grant  that 
socialism  and  Darwinian  selection  may  be  reconciled,  is 
it  not  obvious  that  the  survival  of  the  fittest  tends  to 
establish  an  aristocratic  gradation  of  individuals,  which 
is  contrary  to  socialistic  leveling? 

I  have  already  answered  this  objection  in  part  by 
pointing  out  that  socialism  will  assure  to  all  individuals  V 
— instead  of  as  at  present  only  to  a  privileged  few  or 
to  society’s  heroes — freedom  to  assert  and  develop  their 
own  individualities.  Then  in  truth  the  result  of  the 

/ 

struggle  for  existence  will  be  the  survival  of  the  best 
and  this  for  the  very  reason  that  in  a  wholesome, environ-r  Z 
ment  the  victory  is  won  by  the  healthiest  individuals,  i 
Social  Darwinism,  then,  as  a  continuation  and  comple¬ 
ment  of  natural  (biological)  Darwinism,  will  result  in  a 
selection  of  the  best. 

To  respond  fully  to  this  insistence  upon  an  unlimited 
aristocratic  selection,  I  must  call  attention  to  another 
natural  law  which  serves  to  complete  that  rhythm  of 
action  and  reaction  which  results  in  the  equilibrium 
of  life. 

To  the  Darwinian  law  of  natural  inequalities  we  must 
add  another  law  which  is  inseparable  from  it,  and  which 


57 


Jacoby,  following  in  the  track  of  the  labors  of  Morel, 
Lucas,  Galton,  De  Caudole,  Ribot,  Spencer,  Royer, 
Lombroso,  and  others,  has  clearly  demonstrated  and 
expounded. 

This  same  Nature,  which  makes  “choice”  and  aristo¬ 
cratic  gradation  a  condition  of  vital  progress,  afterwards 
restores  the  equilibrium  by  a  leveling  and  democratic 
law. 

“From  the  infinite  throng  of  humanity  there  emerge 
individuals,  families  and  races  which  tend  to  rise  above 
the  common  level;  painfully  climbing  the  steep  heights 
they  reach  the  summits  of  power,  wealth,  intelligence 
and  talent,  and,  having  reached  the  goal,  they  are  hurled 
down  and  disappear  in  the  abysses  of  insanity  and  degen¬ 
eration.  Death  is  the  great  leveler;  by  destroying  every 
one  who  rises  above  the  common  herd,  it  democratizes 
humanity.”1 

Every  one  who  attempts  to  create  a  monopoly  of 
natural  forces  comes  into  violent  conflict  with  that 
supreme  law  of  Nature  which  has  given  to  all  living 
beings  the  use  and  disposal  of  the  natural  agents:  air 
and  light,  water  and  land. 

Everybody  who  is  too  much  above  or  too  much  below 
the  average  of  humanity — an  average  which  rises  with 

1  Jacoby,  Etudes  sur  la  selection  dans  ses  rapports  avec 
VMrtdite  cliez  Vhomme ,  Paris,  1881,  p.  606. 

Lombroso,  L’uomo  di  genio,  6th  edition,  Turin,  1894,  has 
developed  and  complemented  this  law.-  This  law,  so  easily 
forgotten,  is  neglected  by  Ritciiie  (Darwinism  and  Politics. 
London.  Sonnenschein,  1891.)  in  the  section  called  “Does  the 
doctrine  of  Heredity  support  Aristocracy?” 


* 


r3' 

7 


^  / 

/  r 


l 


$  is 


c.*~ 


58 


the  flux  of  time,  but  is  absolutely  fixed  at  any  given 
moment  of  history — does  not  live  and  disappears  from 
the  stage. 

The  idiot  and  the  man  of  genius,  the  starving  wretch 
and  the  millionaire,  the  dwarf  and  the  giant,  are  so 
many  natural  or  social  monsters,  and  Nature  inexorably 
blasts  them  with  degeneracy  or  sterility,  no  matter 
whether  they  be  the  product  of  the  organic  life,  or  the 
effect  of  the  social  organization. 

And  so,  all  families  possessing  a  monopoly  of  any  kind 
— monopoly  of  power,  of  wealth  or  of  talent — are  inevi¬ 
tably  destined  to  become  in  their  latest  offshoots  im¬ 
beciles,  sterile  or  suicides,  and  finally  to  become  extinct. 
Noble  houses,  dynasties  of  sovereigns,  descendants  of 
millionaires — all  follow  the  common  law  which,  here 
again,  serves  to  confirm  the  inductions — in  this  sense, 
equalitarian — of  science  and  of  socialism. 


V. 


SOCIALISM  AND  RELIGIOUS  BELIEFS. 

Not  one  of  the  three  contradictions  between  socialism 
and  Darwinism,  which  Haeckel  formulated,  and  which 
so  many  others  have  echoed  since,  resists  a  candid  and 
more  accurate  examination  of  the  natural  laws  which 
bear  the  name  of  Charles  Darwin. 

I  add  that  not  only  is  Darwinism  not  in  contradiction 
with  socialism,  but  that  it  constitutes  one  of  its  funda¬ 
mental  scientific  premises.  As  Virchow  justly  remarked, 
socialism  is  nothing  but  a  logical  and  vital  corollary,  in 
part  of  Darwinism,  in  part  of  Spencerian  evolution. 

The  theory  of  Darwin,  whether  we  wish  it  or  not,  by 
demonstrating  that  man  is  descended  from  the  animals, 
has  dealt  a  severe  blow  to  the  belief  in  God  as  the 
creator  of  the  universe  and  of  man  by  a  special  fiat.  Thi3, 
moreover,  is  why  the  most  bitter  opposition,  and  the  only 
opposition  which  still  continues,  to  its  scientific  induc¬ 
tions,  was  made  and  is  made  in  the  name  of  religion. 

It  is  true  that  Darwin  did  not  declare  himself  an 
atheist1  and  that  Spencer  is  not  one;  it  is  also  true  that, 

1  Darwin  never  made  a  declaration  of  atheism,  but  that 
was  in  fact  his  way  of  looking  at  the  problem  (“sa  manure 
<le  voir."). 

While  Haeckel,  concerned  solely  with  triumphing  over  the 
opposition,  said  at  the  Congress  of  Eisenach  (1882)  that 


strictly  speaking,  the  theory  of  Darwin,  like  that  of 
Spencer,  can  also  be  reconciled  with  the  belief  in  God, 
since  it  may  be  admitted  that  God  created  matter  and 
force,  and  that  both  afterward  evolved  into  their  succes¬ 
sive  forms  in  accordance  with  the  initial  creative  impulse. 
Nevertheless,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  these  theories,  by 
rendering  the  idea  of  causality  more  and  more  inflexible 
and  universal,  lead  necessarily  to  the  negation  of  God, 
since  there  always  remains  this  question:  And  God, 
who  created  him?  And  if  it  is  replied  that  God  has 
always  existed,  the  same  reply  may  be  flung  back  by 
asserting  that  the  universe  has  always  existed.  |To  use 
the  phrase  of  Ardigo,  human  thought  is  only  able  to  con¬ 
ceive  the  chain  which  binds  effects  to  causes  as  termina¬ 
ting  at  a  given  point,  purely  conventional.1  J 

God,  as  Laplace  said,  is  an  hypothesis  of  which  exact 
science  has  no  need;  he  is,  according  to  Herzen,  at  the 
most  an  X,  which  represents  not  the  unknowable — as 

Darwin  was  not  an  atheist,  Buchner,  on  the  contrary,  pub¬ 
lished  shortly  afterward  a  letter  which  Darwin  had  written 
him,  and  in  which  he  avowed  that  “since  the  age  of  forty 
years,  his  scientific  studies  had  led  him  to  atheism.” 

(See  also,  “Charles  Darwin  and  Karl  Marx:  A  Comparison,” 
by  Ed.  Aveling.  Published  by  the  Twentieth  Century  Press, 
London. — Translator.) 

In  the  same  way,  John  Stuart  Mill  never  declared  himself 
a  Socialist,  but  that,  nevertheless,  in  opinion  he  was  one,  is 
made  evident  by  his  autobiography  and  his  posthumous 
fragments  on  Socialism.  (See  “The  Socialism  of  John  Stuart 
Mill.”  Humboldt  Pub.  Co.,  New  York. — Tr.) 

1  Ardig6,  La  Formazione  naturale,  Vol.  II.  of  his  Opere 
filologiche,  and  Vol.  VI.,  La  Ragione,  Padone,  1894. 


61 


Spencer  and  Dubois  Raymond  contend — but  all  that 
which  humanity  does  not  yet  know.  Therefore,  it  is  a 
variable  X  which  decreases  in  direct  ratio  to  the  progress 
of  the  discoveries  of  science. 

(  It  is  for  this  very  reason  that  science  and  religion  are 
in  inverse  ratio  to  each  other;  the  one  diminishes  and 
grows  weaker  in  the  same  proportion  that  the  other 
increases  and  grows  stronger  in  its  struggle  against  the 
unknown.* 1  f 

And  if  this  is  one  of  the  consequences  of  Darwinism, 
its  influence  on  the  development  of  socialism  is  quite 
obvious.  v 

The  disappearance  of  faith  in  the  hereafter,  where  the 
poor  shall  become  the  elect  of  the  Lord,  and  where  the 
miseries  of  the  “vale  of  tears”  will  find  an  eternal  com¬ 
pensation  in  paradise,  gives  greater  strength  to  the  desire 
for  some  semblance  of  an  “earthly  paradise”  here  below 
even  for  the  unfortunate  and  the  poor,  who  are  the  great 
majority. 

Hartmann  and  Guyau2  have  shown  that  the  evolution 
of  religious  beliefs  may  be  summarized  thus :  All  religions 
include,  with  various  other  matters,  the  promise  of  hap¬ 
piness;  but  the  primitive  religions  concede  that  this 

1  Guyau,  L’lrreligion  de  Vavenir.  Paris.  1887. 

1  The  dominant  factor,  nevertheless,  in  religious  beliefs, 
is  the  hereditary  or  traditional  sentimental  factor;  this  it  is 
which  always  renders  them  respectable  when  they  are  pro¬ 
fessed  in  good  faith,  and  often  makes  them  even  appeal  to 
our  sympathies, — and  this  is  precisely  because  of  the  in¬ 
genuous  or  refined  sensibility  of  the  persons  in  whom  reli¬ 

gious  faith  is  the  most  vital  and  sincere. 


happiness  will  be  realized  during  the  life  of  the  individual 
himself,  and  the  later  religions,  through  an  excess  of 
reaction,  place  its  realization  after  death,  outside  the 
human  world;  in  the  final  phase,  this  realization  of  happi¬ 
ness  is  once  more  placed  within  the  field  of  human  life, 
no  longer  in  the  ephemeral  moment  of  the  individual 
existence,  but  indeed  in  the  continuous  evolution  of  all 
mankind. 

On  this  side,  then,  socialism  is  closely  related  to  the 
religious  evolution,  and  tends  to  substitute  itself  for 
religion,  since  its  aim  is  for  humanity  to  have  its  own 
“earthly  paradise”  here,  without  having  to  wait  for  it 
in  the  hereafter ,  which,  to  say  the  least,  is  very  problem¬ 
atical. 

Therefore,  it  has  been  very  justly  remarked  that  the 
socialist  movement  has  many  traits  in  common  with,  for 
example,  primitive  Christianity,  notably  that  ardent  faith 
in  the  ideal  that  has  definitively  deserted  the  arid  field  of 
bourgeois  skepticism,  and  some  savants,  not  socialists, 
such  as  Messrs.  Wallace,  de  Lavaleye  and  the  Roberty,  etc., 
admit  that  it  is  entirely  possible  for  socialism  to  replace 
by  its  humanitarian  faith  the  faith  in  the  hereafter  of  the 
former  religions. 

More  direct  and  potent  than  these  relations  (between 
socialism  and  faith  in  a  hereafter)  are,  however,  the  rela¬ 
tions  which  exist  between  socialism  and  the  belief  in 
God. 

It  is  true  that  Marxian  Socialism,  since  the  Congress 
held  at  Erfurt  (1891),  has  rightly  declared  that  religious 


63 


beliefs  are  private  affairs1  and  that,  therefore,  the  So¬ 
cialist  partj~combats  religious  intolerance  under  all  its 
forms,  whether  it  be  directed  against  Catholics2  or  against 
Jews,  as  I  have  shown  in  an  article  against  Anti-Sem¬ 
itism .3  But  this  breadth  of  superiority  of  view  is,  at  bot¬ 
tom,  only  a  consequence  of  the  confidence  in  final  vic¬ 
tory. 

It  is  because  socialism  knows  and  foresees  that  relig¬ 
ious  beliefs,  whether  one  regards  them,  with  Sergi,4  as 
pathological  phenomena  of  human  psychology,  or  as  use¬ 
less  phenomena  of  moral  incrustation,  are  destined  to 
perish  by  atrophy  with  the  extension  of  even  elementary 
scientific  culture.  This  is  why  socialism  does  not  feel 
the  necessity  of  waging  a  special  warfare  against  these 
religious  beliefs  which  are  destined  to  disappear.  It  has 
assumed  this  attitude  although  it  knows  that  the  ab¬ 
sence  or  the  impairment  of  the  belief  in  God  is  one  of 
the  most  powerful  factors  for  its  extension,  because  the 
priests  of  all  religions  have  been,  throughout  all  the 
phases  of  history,  the  most  potent  allies  of  the  ruling 
classes  in  keeping  the  masses  pliant  and  submissive  un¬ 
der  the  yoke  by  means  of  the  enchantment  of  religion, 
just  as  the  tamer  keeps  wild  beasts  submissive  by  the  ter¬ 
rors  of  the  cracks  of  his  whip. 

And  this  is  so  true  that  the  most  clear-sighted  con- 


1  Nitti,  LeSocialisme  catkolique,  Paris,  1894,  p.  27  and  393. 

*  Its  usual  form  in  America. — Translator. 

'  Nuova  Rassegna,  August,  1894. 

4  Sergi,  Uorigine  del  fenomeni  psichici  e  loro  significazione 
biologica,  Milan,  1885,  p.  334,  et  seq. 


servatives,  even  though  they  are  atheists,  regret  that  the 
religious  sentiment — that  precious  narcotic — is  diminish¬ 
ing  among  the  masses,  because  they  see  in  it,  though 
their  pharisaism  does  not  permit  them  to  say  it  openly, 
an  instrument  of  political  domination.1 

Unfortunately,  or  fortunately,  the  religious  sentiment 
cannot  be  re-established  by  royal  decree.  If  it  is  dis¬ 
appearing,  the  blame  for  this  cannot  be  laid  at  the  door 
of  any  particular  individual,  and  there  is  no  need  of  a 
special  propaganda  against  it,  because  its  antidote  im¬ 
pregnates  the  air  we  breathe — saturated  with  the  induc¬ 
tions  of  experimental  science — and  religion  no  longer 
meets  with  conditions  favorable  to  its  development  as 
it  did  amid  the  superstitious  ignorance  of  past  centuries. 

1  have  thus  shown  the  direct  influence  of  modern 
science,  science  based  on  observation  and  experiment, — 
which  has  substituted  the  idea  of  natural  causality  for 
the  ideas  of  miracle  and  divinity, — on  the  extremely 
rapid  development  and  on  the  experimental  foundation 
of  contemporary  socialism. 

Democratic  socialism  does  not  look  with  unfriendly 
eyes  upon  “Catholic  Socialism”  (the  Christian  Socialism 
of  Southern  Europe),  since  it  has  nothing  to  fear  from  it. 

Catholic  socialism,  in  fact,  aids  in  the  propagation  of 
socialist  ideas,  especially  in  the  rural  districts  where  re¬ 
ligious  faith  and  practices  are  still  very  vigorous,  hut  it 

| ■  iirrwm rrmiinrm mi hi«ni*Tmr  wntirirnnui.  p i»  rr 

1  Dukkheim,  De  la  division  du  travail  social.  Paris.  1893. 
As  regards  the  pretended  influence  of  religion  on  personal 
morality  I  have  shown  how  very  slight  a  foundation  there 
was  for  this  opinion  in  my  studies  on  criminal  psychology, 
and  more  particularly  in  Omicidio  nclV  antropologia  criminale. 


65 


will  not  win  and  wear  the  palm  of  victory  ad  majorem 
dei  gloriatn.  As  I  have  shown,  there  is  a  growing  antag¬ 
onism  between  science  and  religion,  and  the  socialist 
varnish  cannot  preserve  Catholicism.  The  “earthly” 
socialism  has,  moreover,  a  much  greater  attractive  power. 

When  the  peasants  shall  have  become  familiar  with  the 
views  of  Catholic  socialism,  it  will  be  very  easy  for  dem¬ 
ocratic  socialism  to  rally  them  under  its  own  flag — they 
will,  indeed,  convert  themselves. 

Socialism  occupies  an  analogous  position  with  regard 
to  republicanism.  Just  as  atheism  is  a  private  affair 
which  concerns  the  individual  conscience,  so  a  republican 
form  of  government  is  a  private  affair  which  interests 
only  a  part  of  the  bourgeoisie.  Certainly,  by  the  time 
that  socialism  draw’s  near  to  its  day  of  triumph,  atheism 
will  have  made  immense  progress,  and  a  republican  form 
of  government  wrill  have  been  established  in  many  coun¬ 
tries  which  to-day  submit  to  a  monarchical  regime.  But 
it  is  not  socialism  which  develops  atheism,  any  more 
than  it  is  socialism  which  will  establish  republicanism. 
Atheism  is  a  product  of  the  theories  of  Darwin  and 
Spencer  in  the  present  bourgeois  civilization,  and  repub¬ 
licanism  has  been  and  will  be,  in  the  various  countries, 
the  work  of  a  portion  of  the  capitalist  bourgeoisie,  as 
was  recently  said  in  some  of  the  conservative  newspapers 
of  Milan  ( Corriere  della  sera  and  Idea  liberate),  when  “the 
monarchy  shall  no  longer  serve  the  interests  of  the  coun¬ 
try,”  that  is  to  say  of  the  class  in  power. 

The  evolution  from  absolute  monarchy  to  constitu¬ 
tional  monarchy  and  to  republicanism  is  an  obvious  his¬ 
torical  law;  in  the  present  phase  of  civilization  the  only 


66 


difference  between  the  two  latter  is  in  the  elective  or 
hereditary  character  of  the  head  of  the  State.  In  the 
various  countries  of  Europe,  the  bourgeoisie  themselves 
will  demand  the  transition  from  monarchy  to  republican¬ 
ism,  in  order  to  put  off  as  long  as  possible  the  triumph  of 
socialism.  In  Italy  as  in  France,  in  England  as  in  Spain, 
we  see  only  too  many  republicans  or  "radicals”  whose 
attitude  with  regard  to  social  questions  is  more  bour¬ 
geois  and  more  conservative  than  that  of  the  intelligent 
conservatives.  At  Montecitorio,  for  example,  there  is 
Imbriani  whose  opinions  on  religious  and  social  mat¬ 
ters  are  more  conservative  than  those  of  M.  di  Rudini. 
Imbriani,  whose  personality  is  moreover  very  attractive, 
has  never  attacked  the  priests  or  monks — this  man  who 
attacks  the  entire  universe  and  very  often  with  good 
reason,  although  without  much  success  on  account  of 
mistaken  methods — and  he  was  the  only  one  to  oppose 
even  the  consideration  of  a  law  proposed  by  the  Depute 
Ferrari,  which  increased  the  tax  on  estates  inherited  by 
collateral  heirs! 

Socialism  then  has  no  more  interest  in  preaching  re¬ 
publicanism  than  it  has  in  preaching  atheism.  To  each 
his  role  (or  task),  is  the  law  of  division  of  labor.  The 
struggle  for  atheism  is  the  business  of  science;  the  es¬ 
tablishment  of  republicanism  in  the  various  countries  of 
Europe  has  been  and  will  be  the  work  of  the  bourgeoisie 
themselves — whether  they  be  conservative  or  radical. 
All  this  constitutes  the  historical  progress  toward  so¬ 
cialism,  and  individuals  are  powerless  to  prevent  or  delay 
the  succession  of  the  phases  of  the  moral,  political  and 
asocial  evolution. 

* 


67 


VI. 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  THE  SPECIES. 

It  can  also  be  shown  that  scientific  socialism  proceeds 
directly  from  Darwinism  by  an  examination  of  the  dif¬ 
ferent  modes  of  conceiving  of  the  individual  in  relation 
to  the  species. 

The  eighteenth  century  closed  with  the  exclusive  glor¬ 
ification  of  the  individual,  of  the  man — as  an  entity  in 
himself.  In  the  works  of  Kousseau  this  was  only  a 
beneficent,  though  exaggerated  re-action  against  the  po¬ 
litical  and  sacerdotal  tyranny  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

This  individualism  led  directly  to  that  artificiality  in 
politics,  which  I  will  consider  a  little  further  on  in  study¬ 
ing  the  relations  between  the  theory  of  evolution  and 
socialism,  and  which  is  common  to  the  ruling  classes  un¬ 
der  the  bourgeois  regime  and  to  the  individualistic  an¬ 
archists, — since  both  alike  imagine  that  the  social  organ¬ 
ization  can  be  changed  in  a  day  by  the  magical  effect  of 
a  bomb, — more  or  less  murderous. 

Modern  biology  has  radically  changed  this  conception 
of  the  individual  and  it  has  demonstrated,  in  the  domain 
of  biology  as  in  that  of  sociology,  that  the  individual  is 
himself  only  an  aggregation  of  more  simple  living  ele¬ 
ments,  and  likewise  that  the  individual  in  himself,  the 
S elbstivesen  of  the  Germans,  does  not  exist  in  inde- 


—  68  — 

pendent  isolation,  but  only  as  a  member  of  a  society 
( Gliedwesen) . 

Every  living  object  is  an  association,  a  collectivity. 

The  monad  itself,  the  living  cell,  the  irreducible  ex¬ 
pression  of  biological  individuality,  is  also  an  aggregate 
of  various  parts  (nucleus,  nucleole,  protoplasm),  and  each 
one  of  them  in  its  turn  is  an  aggregate  of  molecules  which 
are  aggregates  of  atoms. 

The  atom  does  not  exist  alone,  as  an  individual;  the 
atom  is  invisible  and  impalpable  and  it  does  not  live. 

And  the  complexity  of  the  aggregation,  the  federation 
of  the  parts  constantly  increases  with  the  ascent  in  the 
zoological  series  from  protozoa  to  Man. 

Unifying,  Jacobin  artificiality  corresponds  to  the  meta¬ 
physics  of  individualism,  just  as  the  conception  of  na¬ 
tional  and  international  federalism  corresponds  to  the 
scientific  character  of  modern  socialism. 

The  organism  of  a  mammal  is  simply  a  federation  of 
tissues,  organs  and  anatomical  machinery;  the  organism 
of  a  society  can  consist  of  nothing  but  a  federation  of 
communes,  provinces  and  regions;  the  organism  of  hu¬ 
manity  can  be  nothing  but  a  federation  of  nations. 

If  it  is  absurd  to  conceive  of  a  mammal  whose  head 
should  have  to  move  in  the  same  fashion  as  the  extrem¬ 
ities  and  all  of  whose  extremities  would  have  to  perform 
the  same  motions  simultaneously,  there  is  no  less  ab¬ 
surdity  in  a  political  and  administrative  organization  in 
which  the  extreme  northern  province  or  the  mountain¬ 
ous  province,  for  instance,  have  to  have  the  same  bureau¬ 
cratic  machinery,  the  same  body  of  laws,  the  same  meth¬ 
ods,  etc.,  as  the  extreme  southern  province  or  the  prov- 


69 


ince  made  up  of  plains,  solely  through  the  passion  for 
symmetrical  uniformity,  that  pathological  expression  of 
unity. 

If  we  disregard  those  considerations  of  a  political  order 
which  make  it  possible  to  conclude,  as  I  have  done  else¬ 
where,1  that  the  only  possible  organization  for  Italy,  as 
for  every  other  country,  appeared  to  me  to  be  that  of 
an  administrative  federalism  combined  with  political 
unity,  we  can  regard  it  as  manifest,  that  at  the  close  of 
the  nineteenth  century  the  individual,  as  an  independent 
entity,  is  dethroned  alike  in”  biology  and  sociology. 

The  individual  exists,  but  only  in  so  far  as  he  forms  a 
part  of  a  social  aggregate. 

Eobinson  Crusoe — that  perfect  type  of  individualism 
— can  not  possibly  be  aught  but  a  legend  or  a  pathological 
specimen. 

The  species — that  is  to  say,  the  social  aggregate —  is 
the  great,  the  living  and  eternal  reality  of  life,  as  has 
been  demonstrated  by  Darwinism  and  confirmed  by  all 
the  inductive  sciences  from  astronomy  to  sociology. 

At  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century  Eousseau 
thought  that  the  individual  alone  existed,  and  that 
society  was  an  artificial  product  of  the  “social  contract” 
and,  as  he  attributed  (just  as  Aristotle  had  done  in  the 
case  of  slavery)  a  permanent  human  character  to  the 
transitory  manifestations  of  the  period,  such  as  the  rot¬ 
tenness  of  the  regime  under  which  he  lived,  he  further 
thought  that  Society  was  the  cause  of  all  evils,  and  that 
individuals  are  all  born  good  and  equal.  At  the  end  of 


1  Sociologie  criminelle,  French  trans.,  Paris,  1892. 


the  nineteenth  century,  on  the  contrary,  all  the  inductive 
sciences  agree  in  recognizing  that  society,  the  social  ag¬ 
gregate,  is  a  fact  of  Nature,  inseparable  from  life,  in  the 
vegetable  species  as  in  the  animal  species,  from  the  low¬ 
est  “animal  colonies”  of  zoophytes  up  to  societies  of  mam¬ 
mals  (herbivora),  and  to  human  society.1 

All  that  is  best  in  the  individual,  he  owes  to  the  social 
life,  although  every  phase  of  evolution  is  marked  at  its 
decline  by  pathological  conditions  of  social  decay — essen¬ 
tially  transitory,  however — which  inevitably  precede  a 
new  cycle  of  social  renovation. 

The  individual,  as  such,  if  he  could  live,  would  fulfill 
only  one  of  the  two  fundamental  requirements  (needs) 
of  existence:  alimentation — that  is  to  say,  the  selfish 
preservation  of  his  own  organism,  by  means  of  that  pri¬ 
mordial  and  fundamental  function,  which  Aristotle 
designated  by  the  name  of  ctesi — the  conquest  of  food. 

1 1  cannot  consider  here  the  recent  attempt  at  eclecticism 
made  by  M.  Fouillde  and  others.  M.  Fouillde  wishes  to 
oppose,  or  at  least  to  add,  to  the  naturalistic  conception  of 
society  the  consensual  or  contractual  conception.  Evidently, 
since  no  theory  is  absolutely  false,  there  is  even  in  this 
consensual  theory  a  share  of  truth,  and  the  liberty  of 
emigration  may  be  an  instance  of  it — as  long  as  this  liberty 
is  compatible  with  the  economic  interests  of  the  class  in 
power.  But,  obviously,  this  consent,  which  does  not  exist 
at  the  birth  of  each  individual  into  such  or  such  a  society 
(and  this  fact  of  birth  is  the  most  decisive  and  tyrannical 
factor  in  life)  also  has  very  little  to  do  with  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  his  aptitudes  and  tendencies,  dominated  as  they 
are  by  the  iron  law  of  the  economic  and  political  organiza¬ 
tion  in  which  he  is  an  atom. 


But  all  individuals  have  to  live  in  society  because  a 
second  fundamental  requirement  of  life  imposes  itself 
upon  the  individual,  viz.,  the  reproduction  of  beings  like 
himself  for  the  preservation  of  the  species.  It  is  this 
life  of  relationship  and  reproduction  (sexual  and  social) 
which  gives  birth  to  the  moral  or  social  sense,  which 
enables  the  individual  not  only  to  be,  but  to  co-exist  with 
his  fellows . 

It  may  be  said  that  these  two  fundamental  instincts 
of  life — bread  and  love — by  their  functioning  maintain 
a  social  equilibrium  in  the  life  of  animals,  and  especially 
in  Man. 

It  is  love  which  causes,  in  the  great  majority  of  men, 
the  principal  physiological  and  psychical  expenditure  of 
the  forces  accumulated  in  larger  or  smaller  quantities 
by  the  consumption  of  daily  bread,  and  which  the  daily 
labor  has  not  absorbed  or  which  parasitic  inaction  has 
left  intact. 

Even  more — love  is  the  only  pleasure  which  truly  has 
a  universal  and  equalitarian  character.  The  people  have 
named  it  “the  paradise  of  the  poor;”  and  religions  have 
always  bidden  them  to  enjoy  it  without  limits — “be 
fruitful  and  multiply” — because  the  erotic  exhaustion 
which  results  from  it,  especially  in  males,  diminishes  or 
hides  beneath  the  pall  of  forgetfulness  the  tortures  of 
hunger  and  servile  labor,  and  permanently  enervates  the 
energy  of  the  individual;  and  to  this  extent  it  performs 
a  function  useful  to  the  ruling  class. 

But  indissolubly  linked  to  this  effect  of  the  sexual  in¬ 
stinct  there  is  an  other,  the  increase  of  the  population. 
Hence  it  happens  that  the  desire  to  eternize  a  given  so- 


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cial  order  is  thwarted  and  defeated  by  the  pressure  of 
this  population  which  in  our  epoch  assumes  the  charac¬ 
teristic  form  of  the  proletariat, — and  the  social  evolution 
continues  its  inexorable  and  inevitable  forward  march. 

It  follows  from  our  discussion  that  while  at  the  end 
of  the  eighteenth  century  it  was  thought  that  Society 
\  was  made  for  the  individual — and  from  that  the  deduc¬ 
tion  could  be  made  that  millions  of  individuals  could 
and  ought  to  toil  and  suffer  for  the  exclusive  advantage 
of  a  few  individuals — at  the  end  of  our  century  the  in¬ 
ductive  sciences  have  demonstrated,  just  the  opposite, 
that  it  is  the  individual  who  lives  for  the  species  and  that 
the  latter  is  the  only  eternal  reality  of  life. 

There  we  have  the  starting-point  of  the  sociological 
or  socialist  tendency  of  modern  scientific  thought  in  the 
face  of  the  exaggerated  individualism  inherited  from  the 
last  century. 

Modern  biology  also  demonstrates  that  it  is  necessary 
to  avoid  the  opposite  excess — into  which  certain  schools 
of  utopian  socialism  and  of  communism  fall — the  ex¬ 
cess  of  regarding  only  the  interests  of  Society  and  al¬ 
together  neglecting  the  individual.  An  other  biological 
Taw  shows  us,  in  fact,  that  the  existence  of  the  aggregation 
is  the  resultant  of  the  life  of  all  the  individuals,  just  as 
the  existence  of  an  individual  is  the  resultant  of  the  life 
of  its  constituent  cells. 

We  have  demonstrated  that  the  socialism  which  char¬ 
acterizes  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century  and  which 
will  illumine  the  dawn  of  the  coming  century  is  in  per¬ 
fect  harmony  with  the  entire  current  of  modern  thought. 
This  harmony  manifests  itself  even  on  the  fundamental 


/ 


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—  *3  — 

question  of  the  predominance  given  to  the  yital  neces¬ 
sity  of  collective  or  social  solidarity  over  the  dogmatic 
exaggerations  of  individualism,  and  if  the  latter  at  the 
close  of  the  last  century  was  the  outward  sign  of  a  potent 
and  fruitful  awakening,  it  inevitably  leads,  through  the 
pathological  manifestations  of  unbridled  competition,  to 
the  “libertarian”  explosions  of  anarchism  which  preaches 
“individual  action,”  and  which  is  entirely  oblivious  of 
human  and  social  solidarity. 

We  now  come  to  the  last  point  of  contact  and  essen¬ 
tial  oneness  that  there  is  between  Darwinism  and  social¬ 
ism. 


VIII. 

THE  “STRUGGLE  FOR  LIFE”  AND  THE  “CLASS-STRUGGLE.” 

Darwinism  has  demonstrated  that  the  entire  mechan- 
ism  of  animal  evolution  may  be  reduced  to  the  strug¬ 
gle  for  existence  between  individuals  of  the  same  species 
on  the  one  hand,  and  between  each  species  and  the  whole 
world  of  living  beings. 

In  the  same  way  all  the  machinery  of  social  evolution 
has  been  reduced  by  Marxian  socialism  to  the  law  of  the 
Struggle  between  Classes.  This  theory  not  only  gives  us 
the  secret  motive-power  and  the  only  scientific  explana¬ 
tion  of  the  history  of  mankind ;  it  also  furnishes  the  ideal 
and  rigid  standard  of  discipline  for  political  socialism 
and  thus  enables  it  to  avoid  all  the  elastic,  vaporous,  in¬ 
conclusive  uncertainties  of  sentimental  socialism. 

The  only  scientific  explanation  of  the  history  of  animal 
life  is  to  be  found  in  the  grand  Darwinian  law  of  the 
struggle  for  existence;  it  alone  enables  us  to  determine 
the  natural  causes  of  the  appearance,  development  and 
disappearance  of  vegetable  and  animal  species  from 
paleontological  times  down  to  our  own  day.  In  the  same 
way  the  only  explanation  of  the  history  of  human  life  is 
to  be  found  in  the  grand  Marxian  law  of  the  struggle 
between  classes;  thanks  to  it  the  annals  of  primitive,  bar¬ 
barous  and  civilized  humanity  cease  to  be  a  capricious 
and  superficial  kaleidoscopic  arrangement  of  individual 


75 


episodes  in  order  to  become  a  grand  and  inevitable  drama, 
determined — whether  the  actors  realize  it  or  not,  in  its 
smallest  internal  details  as  well  as  in  its  catastrophes — 
by  the  economic  conditions,  which  form  the  indispensable, 
physical  basis  of  life  and  by  the  struggle  between  the 
classes  to  obtain  and  keep  control  of  the  economic  forces, 
upon  which  all  the  others — political,  juridical  and 
moral — necessarily  depend. 

I  will  have  occasion  to  speak  more  at  length — in  study¬ 
ing  the  relations  between  sociology  and  socialism — of  this 
grand  conception,  which  is  the  imperishable  glory  of 
Marx  and  which  assures  him  in  sociology  the  place  which 
Darwin  occupies  in  biology  and  Spencer  in  philosophy.1 
^For  the  moment  it  suffices  for  me  to  point  out  this 
new  point  of  contact  between  Socialism  and  Darwinism. 
The  expression,  Class-Struggle,  so  repugnant  when  first 
heard  or  seen  (and  I  confess  that  it  produced  this  im¬ 
pression  on  me  when  I  had  not  yet  grasped  the  scientific 
import  of  the  Marxian  theory),  furnishes  us,  if  it  be 
correctly  understood,  the  primary  law  of  human  history 
and,  therefore,  it  alone  can  give  us  the  certain  index  of 
the  advent  of  the  new  phase  of  evolution  which  Social¬ 
ism  foresees  and  which  it  strives  to  hasten.  J 

To  assert  the  existence  of  the  class-struggle  is  equi¬ 
valent  to  saying  that  human  society,  like  all  other  living 
organisms,  is  not  a  homogeneous  whole,  the  sum  of  a 
greater  or  smaller  number  of  individuals;  it  is,  on  the 
contrary,  a  living  organism  which  is  made  up  of  diverse 


1  Lafargue,  Le  MaUrialisme  tconomique,  in  Ere  nouvelle, 
1893. 


iL 


parts,  and  their  differentiation  constantly  increases  in 
direct  ratio  to  the  degree  of  social  evolution  attained. 

Just  as  a.  protozoon  is  almost  wholly  composed  of  al¬ 
buminoid  gelatine,  while  a  mammal  is  composed  of  tissues 
widely  varying  in  kind,  in  the  same  way  a  tribe  of  primi¬ 
tive  savages,  without  a  chief,  is  composed  simply  of  a  few 
families  and  the  aggregation  is  the  result  of  mere  ma¬ 
terial  propinquity,  while  a  civilized  society  of  the  his¬ 
torical  or  contemporaneous  period  is  made  up  of  social 
classes  which  differ,  the  one  from  the  other,  either 
through  the  physio-psychical  constitutions  of  their  com¬ 
ponent  members,  or  through  the  whole  of  their  customs 
and  tendencies,  and  their  personal,  family  or  social  life. 

These  different  classes  may  be  rigorously  separated. 
In  ancient  India  they  range  from  the  brahman  to  the 
sndra:  in  the  Europe  of  the  Middle  Ages,  from  the  Em¬ 
peror  and  the  Pope  to  the  feudatory  and  the  vassal,  down 
to  the  artisan,  and  an  individual  cannot  pass  from  one 
class  into  another,  as  his  social  condition  is  determined 
solely  by  the  hazard  of  birth.  Classes  may  lose  their 
legal  character,  as  happened  in  Europe  and  America  after 
the  French  Revolution,  and  exceptionally  there  may  be  an 
instance  of  an  individual  passing  from  one  class  into  an¬ 
other,  analogously  to  the  endosmose  and  exosmose  of 
molecules,  or,  to  use  the  phrase  of  M.  Dumont,  by  a  sort 
of  “social  capillarity.”  But,  in  any  case,  these  different 
classes  exist  as  an  assured  reality  and  they  resist  every 
juridical  attempt  at  leveling  as  long  as  the  fundamental 
reason  for  their  differentiation  remains. 

It  is  Karl  Marx  who,  better  than  any  one  else*  has 
proved  the  truth  of  this  theory  by  the  mass  of  sociological 


77 


observations  which  he  has  drawn  from  societies  under 
the  most  diverse  economic  conditions. 

The  names  (of  the  classes),  the  circumstances  and 
phenomena  of  their  hostile  contact  and  conflict  may  vary 
with  the  varying  phases  of  social  evolution,  but  the  tragic 
essence  of  history  always  appears  in  the  antagonism  be- 
'tweeiPthose  who  hold  the  mommoly «jof „  the  means-  of^ 
production — and  these  are  few — and  those  who  have  been 
robbed  (expropriated)  of  them — and  these  are  the  great 
majority. 

Warriors  and  shepherds  in  the  primitive  societies,  as 
soon  as  first,  family  and  then  individual  ownership  of 
land  has  superseded  the  primitive  collectivism;  patricians 
and  plebeians — feudatories  and  vassals — nobles  and  com¬ 
mon  people — bourgeoisie  and  proletariat ;  these  are  so  many 
manifestations  of  one  and  the  same  fact — the  monopoly 
of  wealth  on  one  side,  and  productive  labor  on  the  other. 

Now,  the  great  importance  of  the  Marxian  law — the 
struggle  between  classes — consists  principally  in  the  fact 
that  it  indicates  with  great  exactness  just  zvhat  is  in 
truth  the  vital  point  of  the  social  question  and  by  what 
method  its  solution  may  be  reached. 

As  long  as  no  one  had  shown  on  positive  evidence  the 
economic  basis  of  the  political,  juridical  and  moral  life, 
the  aspirations  of  the  great  majority  for  the  amelioration 
of  social  conditions  aimed  vaguely  at  the  demand  and 
the  partial  conquest  of  some  accessory  instrumentality* 
such  as  freedom  of  worship,  political  suffrage,  public 
education,  etc.  And  certainly,  I  have  no  desire  to  deny 
the  great  utility  of  these  conquests.  — "n "  ■ 

But  the  sancta  sanctorum  always  remained  impenetra- 


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—  78  — 

ble  to  the  eyes  of  the  masses,  and  as  economic  power 
continued  to  he  the  privilege  of  a  few,  all  the  conquests 
and  all  the  concessions  had  no  real  basis,  separated,  as 
they  were,  from  the  solid  and  fecund  foundation  which 
alone  can  give  life  and  abiding  power. 

Now,  that  Socialism  has  shown — even  before  Marx,  but 
never  before  with  so  much  scientific  precision — that  in¬ 
dividual  ownership,  private  property  in  land  and  the 
means  of  production  is  the  vital  point  of  the  question — 
the  problem  is  formulated  in  exact  terms  in  the  con¬ 
sciousness  of  contemporaneous  humanity. 

What  method  will  it  be  necessary  to  employ  in  order 
to  abolish  this  monopoly  of  economic  power,  and  the 
mass  of  suffering  and  ills,  of  hate  and  injustice  which 
l  flow  from  it  ? 

|  The  method  of  the  Class  Struggle,  based  on  the  scien¬ 
tifically  proven  fact  that  every  class  tends  to  preserve 
and  increase  its  acquired  advantages  and  privileges, 
teaches  the  class  deprived  of  economic  power  that  in 
order  to  succeed  in  conquering  it,  the  struggle  (we  will 
consider,  further  on,  the  forms  of  this  struggle)  must  be 
a  struggle  of  class  against  class,  and  not  of  individual 
against  individual,  j 

Hatred  toward  such  or  such  an  individual — even  if  it 
result  in  his  death — does  not  advance  us  a  single  step 
toward  the  solution  of  the  problem;  it  rather  retards  its 
solution,  because  it  provokes  a  reaction  in  the  general 
feeling  against  personal  violence  and  it  violates  the 
principle  of  respect  for  the  human  person  which  socialism 
proclaims  most  emphatically  for  the  benefit  of  all  and 
against  all  opponents.  The  solution  of  the  problem  does 


not  become  easier  because  it  is  recognized  that  the  pres¬ 
ent  abnormal  condition,  which  is  becoming  more  and 
more  acute — misery  for  the  masses  and  pleasure  for  a 
few — is  not  the  consequence  of  the  bad  intentions  of  such- 
or  such  an  individual. 

Viewed"  from  this  side  also  socialism  is,  in  fact,  in  per¬ 
fect  harmony  with  modern  science,  which  denies  the  , 
free  will  of  man  and  sees  in  human  activity,  individual 
and  collective,  a  necessary  effect  whose  determining 
causes  are  the  conditions  of  race  and  environment,  acting 
concurrently.1 

Crime,  suicide,  insanity,  misery  are  not  the  fruits  of  \ 
free  will,  of  individual  faults,  as  metaphysical  spirtual- 

ism  believes,  and  neither  is  it  an  effect  of  free  will,  a  fault 

, 

of  the  individual  capitalist  if  the  workingman  is  badly 
paid,  if  he  is  without  work,  if  he  is  poor  and  miserable.  / 

All  social  phenomena  are  the  necessary  resultants  of 
the  historical  conditions  and  of  the  environment.  In 
the  modern  world  the  facility  and  the  greater  frequency 
of  communication  and  relations  of  every  kind  between 
_ 

1  Avoiding  both  of  the  mutually  exclusive  theses  that  civili¬ 
zation  is  a  consequence  of  race  or  a  product  of  the  environ¬ 
ment,  I  have  always  maintained — by  my  theory  of  the 
natural  factors  in  criminality — that  it  is  the  resultant  of 
the  combined  action  of  the  race  and  the  environment. 

Among  the  recent  works  which  support  the  thesis  of  the 
exclusive  or  predominant  influence  of  race,  I  must  mention 
Le  Bon,  Les  lois  psychologiques  de  revolution  des  peuples, 
Paris,  1894.  This  work  is,  however,  very  superficial.  I 
refer  the  reader  for  a  more  thorough  examination  of  these 
two  theses  to  Chap.  IV  of  my  book  Omicidio  ncll'  anthropologia 
criminate,  Turin,  1894. 


80 


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all  parts  of  the  earth  have  also  increased  the  dependence 
of  every  fact — economic,  political,  juridical,  ethical, 
artistic  or  scientific — upon  the  most  remote  and  appar¬ 
ently  unrelated  conditions  of  the  life  of  the  great  world. 

The  present  organization  of  private  property  with  no 
restrictions  upon  the  right  of  inheritance  by  descent  or 
upon  personal  accumulation;  the  ever  increasing  and 
more  perfect  application  of  scientific  discoveries  to  the 
facilitation  of  human  labor — the  labor  of  adapting  the 
materials  furnished  by  Nature  to  human  needs;  the  tel¬ 
egraph  and  the  steam-engine,  the  constantly  overflowing 
torrent  of  human  migrations — all  these  bind,  with  in¬ 
visible  but  infrangible  threads,  the  existence  of  a  family 
of  peasants,  work-people  or  petty  trades-people  to  the 
life  of  the  whole  world.  And  the  harvest  of  coffee,  cotton 
or  wheat  in  the  most  distant  countries  makes  its  effects 
felt  in  all  parts  of  the  civilized  world,  just  as  the  decrease 
or  increase  of  the  sun-spots  are  phenomena  co-incident 
with  the  periodical  agricultural  crises  and  have  a  direct 
influence  on  the  destinies  of  millions  of  men. 

This  magnificent  scientific  conception  of  the  “unity 
of  physical  forces,”  to  use  the  expression  of  P.  Secchi, 
or  of  universal  solidarity  is  far,  indeed,  from  that  infan¬ 
tile  conception  which  finds  the  causes  of  human  phenom¬ 
ena  in  the  free  wills  of  individuals.  — 

If  a  socialist  were  to  attempt,  even  for  philanthropic 
purposes,  to  establish  a  factory  in  order  to  give  work  to 
the  unemployed,  and  if  he  were  to  produce  articles  out 
of  fashion  or  for  which  there  was  no  general  demand,  he 
would  soon  become  bankrupt  in  spite  of  his  philanthropic. 


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intentions  by  an  inevitable  effect  of  inexorable  economic 
laws. 

Or,  again,  if  a  socialist  should  give  the  laborers  in  his 
establishment  wages  two  or  three  times  as  high  as  the 
current  rate  of  wages,  he  would  evidently  have  the  same 
fate,  since  he  would  be  dominated  by  the  same  economic 
laws,  and  he  would  have  to  sell  his  commodities  at  a  loss 
or  keep  them  unsold  in  his  warehouses,  because  his  prices 
for  the  same  qualities  of  goods  would  be  above  the  mar¬ 
ket  price. 

He  would  be  declared  a  bankrupt  and  the  only  con¬ 
solation  the  world  would  offer  him  would  be  to  call  him 
an  honest  man  (brave  homme) ;  and  in  the  present  phase 
of  “mercantile  ethics“  we  know  what  this  expression 
means.1 

^Therefore,  without  regard  to  the  personal  relations, 
more  or  less  cordial,  between  capitalists  and  working¬ 
men,  their  respective  economic  situations  are  inexorably 
determined  by  the  present  (industrial)  organization,  in 
accordance  with  the  law  of  surplus-labor  which  enabled 
Marx  to  explain  and  demonstrate  irrefutably  how  the 
capitalist  is  able  to  accumulate  wealth  without  working, 
— because  the  laborer  produces  in  his  day’s  work  an 

1 1  use  the  expression  “mercantile  ethics,”  which  Letour- 
neau  used  in  his  book  on  the  Evolution  of  Ethics  ( L’&vo - 
lution  de  la  morale),  Paris,  1887.  In  his  scientific  study 
of  the  facts  relating  to  ethics,  Letourneau  has  distinguished 
four  phases:  animal  ethics — savage  ethics — barbarous  ethics 
— mercantile  (or  bourgeois)  ethics;  these  phases  will  be  fol¬ 
lowed  by  a  higher  phase  of  ethics  which  Malon  has  called 
social  ethics. 


82 


amount  of  wealth  exceeding  in  value  the  wage  he  re¬ 
ceives,  and  this  surplus-product  forms  the  gratuitous 
(unearned)  profit  of  the  capitalist.  Even  if  we  deduct 
from  the  total  profits  his  pay  for  technical  and  adminis¬ 
trative  superintendence,  this  unearned  surplus-product 
still  remains.jl 

Land,  abandoned  to  the  sun  and  the  rain,  does  not,  of 
itself,  produce  either  wheat  or  wine.  Minerals  do  not 
come  forth,  unaided,  from  the  bowels  of  the  earth.  A 
bag  of  dollars  shut  up  in  a  safe  does  not  produce  dollars, 
as  a  cow  produces  calves. 

|  The  production  of  wealth  results  only  from  a  trans¬ 
formation  of  (Nature-given)  materials  effected  by  human 
labor.  And  it  is  only  because  the  peasant  tills  the  land, 
because  the  miner  extracts  minerals,  because  the  laborer 
sets  machinery  in  motion,  because  the  chemist  makes  ex¬ 
periments  in  his  laboratory,  because  the  engineer  in¬ 
vents  machinery,  etc.,  that  the  capitalist  or  the  landlord 
— though  the  wealth  inherited  from  his  father  may  have 
cost  him  no  labor,  and  though  he  may  practise  absentee¬ 
ism  and  thus  make  no  personal  exertion — is  able  every 
year  to  enjoy  riches  that  others  have  produced  for  him, 
in  exchange  for  wretched  lodgings  and  inadequate  nour¬ 
ishment — while  the  workers  are,  in  most  cases,  poisoned 
by  the  miasmatic  vapors  from  rivers  or  marshes,  by  gas 
in  mines  and  by  dust  in  factories — in  brief,  in  exchange 
for  wages  which  are  always  inadequate  to  assure  the 
workers  conditions  of  existence  worthy  of  human  crea¬ 
tures.  | 

Even  under  a  system  of  absolute  metayage  (share-farm¬ 
ing) — which  has  been  called  a  form  of  practical  social- 


* 


—  83  — 

ism — we  always  have  this  question  left  unanswered.  By 
what  miracle  does  the  landlord,  who  does  not  work,  get 
his  barns  and  houses  filled  with  wheat  and  oil  and  wine 
in  sufficient  quantities  to  enable  him  to  live  in  ample 
comfort,  while  the  metayer  (the  tenant  on  shares)  is 
obliged  to  work  every  day,  in  order  to  wrest  from  the 
earth  enough  to  support  himself  and  his  family  in 
wretchedness? 

And  the  system  of  metayage  does  at  least  give  the  ten¬ 
ant  the  tranquillizing  assurance  that  he  will  reach  the 
end  of  the  year  without  experiencing  all  the  horrors  of 
enforced  idleness  to  which  the  ordinary  day  or  wage 
laborers  are  condemned  in  both  city  and  country.  But, 
in  substance,  the  whole  problem  in  its  entirety  remains 
unsolved  (even  under  this  system),  and  there  is  always 
one  man  who  lives  in  comfort,  without  working,  because 
ten  others  live  poorly  by  working.1 


1  Some  persons,  still  imbued  with  political  (Jacobin)  arti¬ 
ficiality,  think  that  in  order  to  solve  the  social  question 
it  will  be  necessary  to  generalize  the  system  of  metayage. 
They  imagine,  then — though  they  do  not  say  so — a  royal  or 
presidential  decree:  “Art.  1.  Let  all  men  become  metayers!” 

And  it  does  not  occur  to  them  that  if  m6tayage,  which 
was  the  rule,  has  become  a  less  and  less  frequent  exception, 
this  must  be  the  necessary  result  of  natural  causes. 

The  cause  of  the  transformation  is  to  be  found  in  the 
fact  that  metayage  represents  (is  a  form  typical  of)  petty 
agricultural  industry,  and  that  it  is  unable  to  compete  with 
modern  agricultural  industry  organized  on  a  large  scale 
and  well  equipped  with  machinery,  just  as  handicrafts  have 
not  been  able  to  endure  competition  with  modern  manu¬ 
facturing  industry.  It  is  true  that  there  still  are  to-day 


84 


This  is  the  way  the  system  of  private  property  works, 
and  these  are  the  consequences  it  produces,  without  any 
regard  to  the  wills  or  wishes  of  individuals. 

Therefore,  every  attempt  made  against  such  or  such 
an  individual  is  condemned  to  remain  barren  of  results; 
it  is  the  ruling  tendency  of  Society,  the  objective  point 
which  must  be  changed,  it  is  private  ownership  which 
must  be  abolished,  not  by  a  partition  (“dividing  up”), 
which  would  result  in  the  most  extreme  and  pernicious 
form  of  private  ownership,  since  by  the  end  of  a  year 
the  persistence  of  the  old  individualist  principle  would 
restore  the  status  quo  ante ,  and  all  the  advantage  would 
accrue  solely  to  the  most  crafty  and  the  least  scrupulous. 
|  Our  aim  must  be  the  abolition  of  private  ownership 
and  the  establishment  of  collective  and  social  ownership 
in  land  and  the  means  of  production.  This  substitution 
cannot  be  the  subject  for  a  decree, — though  the  inten¬ 
tion  to  effect  it  by  a  decree  is  attributed  to  us — but  it  is 
in  course  of  accomplishment  under  our  eyes,  every  day, 
from  hour  to  hour,  directly  or  indirectly.  | 

some  handicraft  industries  in  a  few  villages,  but  these  are 
rudimentary  organs  which  merely  represent  an  anterior 
phase  (of  production),  and  which  no  longer  have  any  im¬ 
portant  function  in  the  economic  world.  They  are,  like 
the  rudimentary  organs  of  the  higher  species  of  animals, 
according  to  the  theory  of  Darwin,  permanent  witnesses  of 
past  epochs. 

The  same  Darwinian  and  economic  law  applies  to  m&tayage , 
which  is  also  evidently  destined  to  the  same  fate  as  handi¬ 
crafts. 

Conf.  the  excellent  propagandist  pamphlet  of  Biel,  Af 
contadini  toscani,  Colle  d’  Elsa,  1894. 


85 


Directly,  because  civilization  shows  us  the  continuous 
substitution  of  public  ownership  and  social  functions 
for  private  ownership  and  individual  functions.  Roads, 
postal  systems,  railways,  museums,  city  lighting-plants, 
water-plants,  schools,  etc.,  which  were  only  a  few  years 
since  private  properties  and  functions,  have  become  social 
properties  and  functions.  And  it  would  be  absurd  to 
imagine  that  this  direct  process  of  socialization  is  des¬ 
tined  to  come  to  a  halt  to-day,  instead  of  becoming 
progressively  more  and  more  marked,  in  accordance  with 
every  tendency  of  our  modern  life. 


Indirectly,  since  it  is  the  outcome,  toward  which  the 
economic  individualism  of  the  bourgeoisie  tends.  The 
bourgeois  class,  which  takes  its  name  from  the  dwellers 
in  the  bourgs  (towns)  which  the  feudal  chateau  and  the 
Church — symbols  of  the  class  then  dominant — protected, 
is  the  result  of  fecund  labor  intelligently  directed  to¬ 
ward  its  goal  and  of  historical  conditions  which  have 
changed  the  economic  structure  and  tendency  of  the 
world  (the  discovery  of  America,  for  instance).  This 
class  achieved  its  revolution  in  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  and  conquered  the  political  power.  In  the  his¬ 
tory  of  the  civilized  world,  it  has  inscribed  a  page  in 
letters  of  gold  by  those  wondrous  developments  in  the 
lives  of  nations  that  are  truly  epic  in  character,  and  by 

its  marvelous  applications  of  science  to  industry . 

but  it  is  now  traversing  the  downward  branch  of  the 
parabola,  and  symptoms  are  appearing  which  announce 
to  us — and  offer  proof  of  their  announcement — its  dis¬ 
solution;  without  its  disappearance,  moreover,  the  advent 


86 


and  establishment  of  a  new  social  phase  would  he  im¬ 
possible. 


Economic  individualism  carried  out  to  its  ultimate 
logical  consequences,  necessarily  causes  the  progressive 
multiplication  of  property  in  hands  of  a  constantly  di- 

^  ^  i-nmu'-Jw^'rurV'rr^ri — -t— rt»i*T  ttti-ii  h 

minishing  number  of  persons.  Milliardaire  (billionaire) 
is  a  new  word,  which  is  characteristic  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  and  this  new  word  serves  to  express  and  empha¬ 
size  that  phenomenon — in  which  Henry  George  saw  the 
historic  law  of  individualism — of  the  rich  becoming  rich¬ 
er  while  the  poor  become  poorer.1 


Now  it  is  evident  that  the  smaller  is  the  number  of 
those  who  hold  possession  of  the  land  and  the  means  of 
production  the  easier  is  their  expropriation — with  or 
without  indemnification — for  the  benefit  of  a  single  pro¬ 
prietor  which  is  and  can  be  Society  alone. 


Land  is  the  physical  basis  of  the  social  organism.  It 
is  then  absurd  for  it  to  belong  to  a  few  and  not  to  the 
whole  social  collectivity;  it  would  not  be  any  more  ab¬ 
surd  for  the  air  we  breathe  to  be  the  monopoly  of  a  few 
ciirlords. 


That  (the  socialization  of  the  land  and  the  means  of 
production)  is  truly  the  supreme  goal  of  socialism,  but 
evidently  it  can  not  be  reached  by  attacking  such  or  such 
a  landlord,  or  such  or  such  a  capitalist.  The  individual¬ 
ist  mode  of  conflict  is  destined  to  remain  barren  of  re¬ 
sults,  or,  to  say  the  least,  it  requires  a  terribly  extrav- 


1  Henry  George,  Progress  and  Poverty,  New  York,  1898. 
Doubleday  &  McClure  Co. 


87 


agant  expenditure  of  strength  and  efforts  to  obtain  mere¬ 
ly  partial  or  provisional  results. 

And  so  those  politicians,  whose  conception  of  states¬ 
manship  is  a  career  of  daily,  trivial  protests,  who  see 
nothing  in  politics  but  a  struggle  between  individuals — 
and  those  tactics  no  longer  produce  any  effect  either  on 
the  public  or  on  legislative  assemblies,  because  they  have 
at  last  become  wonted  to  them — produce  just  about  as 
much  effect  as  would  fantastic  champions  of  hygiene 
who  should  attempt  to  render  a  marsh  inhabitable  by 
killing  the  mosquitoes  one  by  one  with  shots  from  a 
revolver,  instead  of  adopting  as  their  method  and  their 
goal  the  draining  of  the  pestilential  marsh. 

No  individual  conflicts,  no  personal  violence,  hut  a 
Class  Struggle.  It  is  necessary  to  make  the  immense 
armv  of  workers  of  all  trades  and  of  all  professions 
conscious  of  these  fundamental  truths.  It  is  necessary 
to  show  them  that  their  class  interests  are  in  opposition 
to  the  interests  of  the  class  who  possess  the  economic 
power,  and  that  it  is  by  class-conscious  organization  that 
they  will  conquer  this  economic  power  through  the 
instrumentality  of  the  other  public  powers  that  mod¬ 
ern  civilization  has  assured  to  free  peoples.  It  may, 
nevertheless,  be  foreseen  that,  in  every  country,  the 
ruling  class,  before  yielding,  will  abridge  or  destroy  even 
these  public  liberties  which  were  without  danger  for 
them  when  they  were  in  the  hands  of  laborers  not  organ¬ 
ized  into  a  class-conscious  party,  but  forming  the  rear¬ 
guard  of  other  purely  political  parties,  as  radical  on 
secondary  questions  as  they  are  profoundly  conservative 


88 


on  the  fundamental  question  of  the  economic  organiza¬ 
tion  of  property. 

A  Class-Struggle,  therefore  a  struggle  of  class  against 
class;  and  a  struggle  (this  is  understood),  by  the  meth¬ 
ods  of  which  I  will  soon  speak  in  discussing  the  four 
modes  of  social  transformation:  evolution — revolution 
— rebellion — individual  violence.  But  a  Class- Struggle 
in  the  Darwinian  sense,  which  renews  in  the  history  of 
Man  the  magnificent  drama  of  the  struggle  for  life  be¬ 
tween  species,  instead  of  degrading  us  to  the  savage  and 
meaningless  brute  strife  of  individual  with  individual. 

We  can  stop  here.  The  examination  of  the  relations 
etween  Darwinism  and  socialism  might  lead  us  much 
further,  but  it  would  go  on  constantly  eliminating  the 
pretended  contradiction  between  the  two  currents  of 
modern  scientific  thought,  and  it  would,  on  the  contrary, 
confirm  the  essential,  natural  and  indissoluble  harmony 
that  there  is  between  them. 

Thus  the  penetrating  view  of  Virchow  is  confirmed 
by  that  of  Leopold  Jacoby. 

“The  same  year  in  which  appeared  Darwin’s  book 
(1859)  and  coming  from  a  quite  different  direction,  an 
identical  impulse  was  given  to  a  very  important  develop¬ 
ment  of  social  science  by  a  work  which  long  passed  un¬ 
noticed,  and  which  bore  the  title:  Critique  de  Veconomie 
politique  by  Karl  Marx — it  was  the  forerunner  of 
Capital. 

“What  Darwin’s  book  on  the  Origin  of  Species  is  on 
the  subject  of  the  genesis  and  evolution  of  organic  life 
from  non-sentient  nature  up  to  Man,  the  work  of  Marx 
is  on  the  subject  of  the  genesis  and  evolution  of  associa- 


89 


tion  among  human  beings,  of  States  and  the  social  forms 
of  humanity.” *  1 

And  this  is  why  Germany,  which  has  been  the  most 
fruitful  field  for  the  development  of  the  Darwinian 
theories,  is  also  the  most  fruitful  field  for  the  intelligent, 
systematic  propaganda  of  socialist  ideas. 

And  it  is  precisely  for  this  reason  that  in  Berlin,  in 
the  windows  of  the  book-stores  of  the  socialist  propa¬ 
ganda,  the  works  of  Charles  Darwin  occupy  the  place  of 
honor  beside  those  of  Karl  Mars,2 


1  L.  Jacoby,  L’Idea  delV  evoluzione,  in  Bibliotheca  dell ’  eco- 
nomista,  s§rie  III,  vol.  IX,  2d  part,  p.  69. 

1  At  the  death  of  Darwin  the  Sozialdemokrat  of  the  27th  of 
April,  1882,  wrote:  “The  proletariat  who  are  struggling  for 
their  emancipation  will  ever  honor  the  memory  of  Charles 
Darwin.” 

Conf.  Lafargue,  La  tMorie  darwinienne. 

I  am  well  aware  that  in  these  last  years,  perhaps  in  con¬ 
sequence  of  the  relations  between  Darwinism  and  socialism, 
consideration  has  again  been  given  to  the  objections  to  the 
theory  of  Darwin,  made  by  Voegeli,  and  more  recently  by 
Weismann,  on  the  hereditary  transmissibility  of  acquired 
characters.  See  Spencer,  The  Inadequacy  of  Natural  Selection, 
Paris,  1894. — Virchow,  Transformisme  et  descendance ,  Berlin, 
1893.  But  all  this  merely  concerns  such  or  such  a  detail 
of  Darwinism,  while  the  fundamental  theory  of  metamorphic 

organic  development  remains  impregnable. 


PART  SECOND. 


EVOLUTION  AND  SOCIALISM. 

The  theory  of  universal  evolution  which — apart  from 
such  or  such  a  more  or  less  disputable  detail — is  truly 
characteristic  of  the  vital  tendency  of  modern  scientific 
thought,  has  also  been  made  to  appear  in  absolute  con¬ 
tradiction  with  the  theories  and  the  practical  ideals  of 
socialism. 

In  this  case  the  fallacy  is  obvious. 

If  socialism  is  understood  as  that  vague  complex  of 
sentimental  aspirations  so  often  crystallized  into  the  arti¬ 
ficial  utopian  creations  of  a  new  human  world  to  be  sub¬ 
stituted  by  some  sort  of  magic  in  a  single  day  for  the  old 
world  in  which  we  live;  then  it  is  quite  true  that  the 
scientific  theory  of  evolution  condemns  the  presumptions 
and  the  illusions  of  artificial  or  utopian  political  theories, 
which,  whether  they  are  reactionary  or  revolutionary, 
are  always  romantic,  or  in  the  words  of  the  American 
Senator  Ingalls,  are  “iridescent  dreams.” 

But,  unfortunately  for  our  adversaries,  contemporary 
socialism  is  an  entirely  different  thing  from  the  social¬ 
ism  which  preceded  the  work  of  Marx.  Apart  from  the 
same  sentiment  of  protest  against  present  injustices  and 


<**  s^ir <-■*!£.  -  a 

ig^ityVHr 


^^  ■****■'  '*>*%■.<■ 


,  a****™  ■  ’=»  ■  ■**■■«*■- ■*-** 


91  — 


the  same  aspirations  toward  a  better  future,  there  is 
nothing  in  common  between  these  two  socialisms,  neither 
in  their  logical  structure  nor  in  their  deductions,  un¬ 
less  it  be  the  (Sear  vision,  which  in  modern  socialism  be- 


\  — ir  “*—^—11  

comes  a  mathematically  exact  prediction  (thanks  to  the 
theories  of  evolution)  of  the  final  social  organization — 
based  on  the  collective  ownership  of  the  land  and  the 
means  of  production. 

These  are  the  conclusions  to  which  we  are  led  by  the 
evidence  of  the  facts — facts  verified  by  a  scientific  exam¬ 
ination  of  the  three  principal  contradictions  which  our 
opponents  have  sought  to  set  up  between  socialism  and 
scientific  evolution. 

From  this  point  it  is  impossible  not  to  see  the  direct 
causal  connection  between  Marxian  socialism  and  scien¬ 
tific  evolution,  since  it  must  be  recognized  that  the 
former  is  simply  theological  consequence  of  the  applica¬ 
tion  of  the  evolutionary  theory  to  the  domain  of  eco¬ 
nomics. 


* 

s  ***  s 


'  \ 


92 


IX. 


THE  ORTHODOX  THESIS  AND  THE  SOCIALIST  THESIS  IN 
THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  EVOLUTION  THEORY. 


What,  in  substance,  is  the  message  of  socialism  ?  That 
the  present  economic  world  can  not  be  immutable  and 
eternal,  that  it  merely  represents  a  transitory  phase  of 
social  evolution  and  that  an  ulterior  phase,  a  differently 
organized  world,  is  destined  to  succeed  it. 

That  this  new  organization  must  be  collectivist  or 
socialist — and  no  longer  individualist — results,  as  an  ul¬ 
timate  and  certain  conclusion,  from  the  examination  we 
have  made  of  Darwinism  and  socialism. 

I  must  now  demonstrate  that  this  fundamental  affirma¬ 
tion  of  socialism — leaving  out  of  consideration  for  the 
moment  all  the  details  of  that  future  organization,  of 
which  I  will  speak  further  on — is  in  perfect  harmony 
with  the  experiential  theory  of  evolutionism. 

|  Upon  what  point  are  orthodox  political  economy  and 
socialism  in  absolute  conflict?  Political  economy  has 
held  and  holds  that  the  economic  laws  governing  the 
production  and  distribution  of  wealth  which  it  has  estab¬ 
lished  are  natural  laws  ....  not  in  the  sense  that  they 
are  laws  naturally  determined  by  the  conditions  of  the 
social  organism  (which  would  be  correct),  but  that  they 
are  absolute  lazvs ,  that  is  to  say  that  they  apply  to  human- 


93 


ity  at  all  times  and  in  all  places,  and,  consequently,  that 
they  are  immutable  in  their  principal  points,  though 
they  may  be  subject  to  modification  in  details.1^ 

Scientific  socialism  holds,  on  the  contrary,  that  the 
laws  established  by  classical  political  economy,  since  the 
time  of  Adam  Smith,  are  laws  peculiar  to  the  present 
period  in  the  history  of  civilized  humanity,  and  that  they 
are,  consequently,  laws  essentially  relative  to  the  period 
of  their  analysis  and  discovery,  and  that  just  as  they  no 
longer  fit  the  facts  when  the  attempt  is  made  to  extend 
their  application  to  past  historical  epochs  and,  still  more, 
to  pre-historic  and  ante-historic  times,  so  it  is  absurd  to 
attempt  to  apply  them  to  the  future  and  thus  vainly  try 
to  petrify  and  perpetuate  present  social  forms,  j 

Of  these  two  fundamental  theses,  the  orthodox  thesis 
and  the  socialist  thesis,  which  is  the  one  which  best 
agrees  with  the  scientific  theory  of  universal  evolution? 

The  answer  can  not  be  doubtful.2 

Ihe  theory  of  evolution,  of  which  Herbert  Spencer 
was  the  true  creator,  by  applying  to  sociology  the  tend¬ 
ency  to  relativism  which  the  historical  school  had  fol¬ 
lowed  in  its  studies  in  law  and  political  economy  (even 
then  heterodox  on  more  than  one  point),  has  shown  that 
everything  changes;  that  the  present  phase— of  the  facts 
in  astronomy,  geology,  biology  and  sociology — is  only 

1  U.  Rabbeno,  Le  leggi  economiche  e  il  socialismo,  in  Rivista 
di  filos.  scicntif.,  1884,  vol.  III.,  fasc.  5. 

This  is  the  thesis  of  Colajaniti,  in  II  socialismo,  Catane, 
1884,  P.  277.  He  errs  when  he  thinks  that  I  combatted  this 
position  in  my  book  Socialismo  c  criminalitd. 


the  resultant  of  thousands  on  thousands  of  incessant, 
inevitable,  natural  transformations;  that  the  present  dif¬ 
fers  from  the  past  and  that  the  future  will  certainly  he 
different  from,  the  present. 

Spencerism  has  done  nothing  hut  to  collate  a  vast 
amount  of  scientific  evidence,  from  all  branches*of  human 
knowledge,  in  support  of  these  two  abstract  thoughts 
of  Leibnitz  and  Hegel:  “The  present  is  the  child  of  the 
past,  but  it  is  the  parent  of  the  future/’  and  “Nothing 
is;  everything  is  becoming.”  This  demonstration  had 
already  been  made  in  the  case  of  geology  by  Lyell  who 
substituted  for  the  traditional  catastrophic  theory  of 
cataclysmic  changes,  the  scientific  theory  of  the  gradual 
and  continuous  transformation  of  the  earth.1 


It  is  true  that,  notwithstanding  his  encyclopaadic 
knowledge,  Herbert  Spencer  has  not  made  a  really  pro¬ 
found  study  of  political  economy,  or  that  at  least  he  has 
*  t 

not  furnished  us  the  evidence  of  the  facts  to  support  his 
assertions  in  this  field  as  he  has  done  in  the  natural 


sciences.  This  does  not  alter  the  fact,  however,  that 
socialism  is,  after  all,  in  its  fundamental  conception 
only  the  logical  application  of  the  scientific  theory  of 
natural  evolution  to  economic  phenomena. 

It  was  Karl  Marx  who,  in  1859  in  his  Critique  de  V eco¬ 
nomic  politique,  and  even,  before  then,  in  1847,  in  the 

1  Morselli,  Antropologia  generate  —  Lezioni  sulV  uomo 
secondo  la  teoria  dell ’  cvoluzione,  Turin,  1890-94,  gives  an 
excellent  resumd  of  these  general  indications  of  modern 
scientific  thought  in  their  application  to  all  branches  of 
knowledge  from  geology  to  anthropology. 


95 


famous  Manifesto  written  in  collaboration  with  Engels, 
nearly  ten  years  before  Spencer’s  First  Principles,  and 
finally  in  Capital  (1867)  supplemented,  or  rather  com¬ 
pleted,  in  the  social  domain,  the  scientific  revolution  be¬ 
gun  by  Darwin  and  Spencer. 

The  old  metaphysics  conceived  of  ethics — law — eco¬ 
nomics — as.a  finished  compilation  of  absolute  and  eternal 
laws.  This  is  the  conception  of  Plato.  It  takes  into  con¬ 
sideration  only  historical  times  and  it  has,  as  an  instru¬ 
ment  of  research,  only  the  fantastic  logic  of  the  school¬ 
men.  The  generations  which  preceded  us,  have  all  been 
imbued  with  this  notion  of  the  absoluteness  of  natural 
laws,  the  conflicting  laws  of  a  dual  universe  of  matter 
and  spirit.  Modern  science,  on  the  contrary,  starts  from 
the  magnificent  synthetic  conception  of  monism,  that  is 
to  say,  of  a  single  substance  underlying  all  phenomena 
— matter  and  force  being  recognized  as  inseparable  and 
indestructible,  continuously  evolving  in  a  succession  of 
forms — forms  relative  to  their  respective  times  and 
places.  It  has  radically  changed  the  direction  of  modern 
thought  and  directed  it  toward  the  grand  idea  of  uni¬ 
versal  evolution.1 

Ethics,  law  and  politics  are  mere  superstructures,  ef¬ 
fects  of  the  economic  structure;  they  vary  with  its  vari¬ 
ations,  from  one  parallel  (of  latitude  or  longitude)  to  an¬ 
other,  and  from  one  century  to  another. 

This  is  the  great  discovery  which  the  genius  of  Karl 
Marx  has  expounded  in  his  Critique  de  V economic  politique. 
I  will  examine  further  on  the  question  as  to  what  this 


1  Bonardi,  Evoluzionismo  e  socialismo,  Florence,  1894. 


96 


sole  source  or  basis  of  the  varying  economic  conditions 
is,  but  the  important  point  now  is  to  emphasize  their 
constant  variability,  from  the  pre-historic  ages  down  to 
historical  times  and  to  the  different  periods  of  the  lat¬ 
ter. 

(Moral  codes,  religious  creeds,  juridical  institutions 
both  civil  and  criminal,  political  organization: — all  are 
constantly  undergoing  transformation  and  all  are  rela¬ 
tive  to  their  respective  historical  and  material  environ¬ 
ments.  j 

To  slay  one’s  parents  is  the  greatest  of  crimes  in 
Europe  and  America;  it  is,  on  the  contrary,  a  duty  en¬ 
joined  by  religion  in  the  island  of  Sumatra;  in  the  same 
way,  cannibalism  is  a  permitted  usage  in  Central  Africa, 
and  such  it  also  was  in  Europe  and  America  in  pre¬ 
historic  ages. 

The  family  is,  at  first  (as  among  animals),  only  a  sort 
of  sexual  communism;  then  polyandry  and  the  matri¬ 
archal  system  were  established  where  the  supply  of  food 
was  scanty  and  permitted  only  a  very  limited  increase 
of  population ;  we  find  polygamy  and  the  patriarchal  sys¬ 
tem  appearing  whenever  and  wherever  the  tyranny  of 
this  fundamental  economic  cause  of  polyandry  ceases  to 
be  felt;  with  the  advent  of  historical  times  appears  the 
monogamic  form  of  the  family  the  best  and  the  most 
advanced  form,  although  it  is  still  requisite  for  it  to  be 
freed  from  the  rigid  conventionalism  of  the  indissoluble 
tie  and  the  disguised  and  legalized  prostitution  (the  fruits 
of  economic  causes)  which  pollute  it  among  us  to-day. 

How  can  any  one  hold  that  the  constitution  of  prop¬ 
erty  is  bound  to  remain  eternally  just  as  it  is,  immutable, 


97 


in  the  midst  of  the  tremendous  stream  of  changing  so¬ 
cial  institutions  and  moral  codes,  all  passing  through 
evolutions  and  continuous  and  profound  transforma¬ 
tions?  Property  alone  is  subject  to  no  changes  and  will 
remain  petrified  in  its  present  form,  i.  e .,  a  monopoly  by 
a  few  of  the  land  and  the  means  of  production!1 

!  This  is  the  absurd  contention  of  economic  and  juridical 
orthodoxy.  To  the  'irresistible  proofs  and  demonstra¬ 
tions  of  the  evolutionist  theory,  they  make  only  this  one 
concession:  the  subordinate  rules  may  vary,  the  abuses 
may  be  diminished.  The  principle  itself  is  unassailable 
and  a  few  individuals  may  seize  upon  and  appropriate  the 
land  and  the  means  of  production  necessary  to  the  life  of 
the  whole  social  organism  wdiich  thus  remains  com¬ 
pletely  and  eternally  under  the  more  or  less  direct  domi¬ 
nation  of  those  who  have  control  over  the  physical  foun¬ 
dation  of  life.^ 


1  Arcaxgeli,  Le  evoluzioni  della  propriety,  in  Critica  sociale, 
July  1,  1894. 


’This  is  exactly  analogous  to  the  conflict  between  the 
partisans  and  the  opponents  of  free-will. 

The  old  metaphysics  accorded  to  man  (alone,  a  marvelous 
exception  from  all  the  rest  of  the  universe)  an  absolutely 
free  will. 

Modern  physio-psychology  absolutely  denies  every  form 
of  the  free-will  dogma  in  the  name  of  the  laws  of  natural 
causality. 

An  intermediate  position  is  occupied  by  those  who,  while 
recognizing  that  the  freedom  of  man’s  will  is  not  absolute, 
hold  that  at  least  a  remnant  of  freedom  must  be  conceded 
to  the  human  will,  because  otherwise  there  would  no  longer 


98 


Nothing  more  than  a  perfectly  clear  statement  of  the 
two  fundamental  theses — the  thesis  of  classical  law  and 
economics,  and  the  economic  and  juridical  thesis  of  so¬ 
cialism — is  necessary  to  determine,  without  further  dis¬ 
cussion,  this  first  point  of  the  controversy.  At  all  events. 


be  any  merit  or  any  blameworthiness,  any  vice  or  any 
virtue,  etc. 

I  considered  this  question  in  my  first  work:  Teoria  dell * 
imputabilitd  e  negazione  del  libero  arbitrio  (Florence,  1878, 
out  of  print),  and  in  the  third  chapter  of  my  Sociologie 
criminelle,  French  trans.,  Paris,  1892. 

I  speak  of  it  here  only  in  order  to  show  the  analogy  in 
the  form  of  the  debate  on  the  economico-social  question, 
and  therefore  the  possibility  of  predicting  a  similar  ultimate 
solution. 

The  true  conservative,  drawing  his  inspiration  from  the 
metaphysical  tradition,  sticks  to  the  old  philosophical  or 
economic  ideas  with  all  their  rigid  absolutism;  at  least  he 
is  logical. 

The  determinist,  in  the  name  of  science,  upholds  diametri¬ 
cally  opposite  ideas,  in  the  domain  of  psychology  as  well 
as  in  those  of  the  economic  or  juridical  sciences. 

The  eclectic,  in  politics  as  in  psychology,  in  political 
economy  as  in  law,  is  a  conservative  through  and  through, 
but  he  fondly  hopes  to  escape  the  difficulties  of  the  con¬ 
servative  position  by  making  a  few  partial  concessions  to 
save  appearances.  But  if  eclecticism  is  a  convenient  and 
agreeable  attitude  for  its  champions,  it  is,  like  hybridism, 
sterile,  and  neither  life  nor  science  owe  anything  to  it. 

Therefore,  the  socialists  are  logical  when  they  contend 
that  in  the  last  analysis  there  are  only  two  political  parties: 
the  individualists  (conservatives  [or  Republicans],  progres¬ 
sives  [or  Democrats]  and  radicals  [or  Populists])  and  the 
socialists. 


99 


the  theory  of  evolution  is  in  perfect,  unquestionable  har¬ 
mony  with  the  inductions  of  socialism  and,  or  the  con¬ 
trary,  it  flatly  contradicts  the  hypothesis  of  the  absolute¬ 
ness  and  immutability  of  the  "natural”  laws  ol  econom¬ 
ics,  etc. 


100 


X. 

THE  LAW  OF  APPARENT  RETROGRESSION  AND  COLLEC¬ 
TIVE  OWNERSHIP. 

Admitting,  say  our  adversaries,  that  in  demanding  a 
...  social  transformation  socialism  is  in  apparent  accord  with 
the  evolutionist  theory,  it  does  not  follow  that  its  positive 
conclusions — notably  the  substitution  of  social  owner¬ 
ship  for  individual  ownership — are  justified  by  that  the¬ 
ory.  Still  further,  they  add,  we  maintain  that  those  con¬ 
clusions  are  in  absolute  contradiction  with  that  very 
theory,  and  that  they  are  therefore,  to  say  the  least, 
utopian  and  absurd. 

The  first  alleged  contradiction  between  socialism  and 
evolutionism  is  that  the  return  to  collective  ownership 
of  the  land  would  be,  at  the  same  time,  a  return  to  the 
primitive,  savage  state  of  mankind,  and  socialism  would 
indeed  he  a  transformation,  hut  a  transformation  in  a 
backward  direction,  that  is  to  say,  against  the  current  of 
the  social  evolution  which  has  led  us  from  the  primitive 
form  of  collective  property  in  land  to  the  present  form 
of  individual  property  in  land — the  form  characteristic 
of  advanced  civilization.  Socialism,  then,  would  be  a 
return  to  barbarism. 

This  objection  contains  an  element  of  truth  which  can 
not  be  denied;  it  rightly  points  out  that  collective  owner- 


101 


ship  would  be  a  return — apparent — to  the  primitive  so¬ 
cial  organization.  But  the  conclusion  drawn  from  this 
truth  is  absolutely  false  and  anti-scientific  because  it 
altogether  neglects  a  law — which  is  usually  forgotten — 
but  which  is  no  less  true,  no  less  founded  on  scientific 
observation  of  the  facts  than  is  the  law  of  social  evolu¬ 
tion. 

This  is  a  sociological  law  which  an  able  French  phy¬ 
sician  merely  pointed  out  in  his  studies  on  the  relations 
between  Transmutation  and  Socialism,1  and  the  truth 
and  full  importance  of  which  I  showed  in  my  Sociologie 
criminelle  (1892) — before  I  became  a  militant  socialist — 
and  which  I  again  emphasized  in  my  recent  controversy 
with  Morselli  on  the  subject  of  divorce.2 

This  law  of  apparent  retrogression  proves  that  »the 
reversion  of  social  institutions  to  primitive  forms  and 
types  is  a  fact  of  constant  recurrence. 

Before  referring  to  some  obvious  illustrations  of  this 
law,  I  would  recall  to  your  notice  the  fact  that  M. 
Cognetti  de  Martiis,  as  far  back  as  1881,  had  a  vague 
perception  of  this  sociological  law.  His  work,  Forme 
primitive  nelP  evoluzione  economica,  (Turin,  1881),  so  re¬ 
markable  for  the  fullness,  accuracy  and  reliability  of  its 
collation  of  relevant  facts,  made  it  possible  to  foresee 
the  possibility  of  the  reappearance  in  the  future  economic 
evolution  of  the  primitive  forms  characteristic  of  the 

1  L.  Dramard,  Transformisme  et  socialisms,  in  Revue  Socia¬ 
lists,  Jan.  and  Feb.,  1885. 

2  Divorzio  e  sociologia,  in  Scuola  positiva  nella  giurisprudenza 
penale,  Rome,  1893,  No.  16. 


102 


status  which  formed  the  starting-point  of  the  social 
evolution. 

I  also  remember  having  heard  Cardncci  say,  in  his 
lectures  at  the  University  of  Bologna,  that  the  later 
development  of  the  forms  and  the  substance  of  literature 
is  often  merely  the  reproduction  of  the  forms  and  the 
substance  of  the  primitive  Gragco-Oriental  literature;  in 
the  same  way,  the  modern  scientific  theory  of  monism, 
the  very  soul  of  universal  evolution  and  the  typical  and 
definitive  form  of  systematic,  scientific,  experiential  hu¬ 
man  thought  boldly  fronting  the  facts  of  the  external 
world — following  upon  the  brilliant  but  erratic  specula¬ 
tions  of  metaphysics — is  only  a  return  to  the  ideas  of  the 
Greek  philosophers  and  of  Lucretius,  the  great  poet  of 
naturalism. 

The  examples  of  this  reversion  to  primitive  forms  are 
only  too  obvious  and  too  numerous,  even  in  the  category 
of  social  institutions. 

I  have  already  spoken  of  the  religious  evolution. 
According  to  Hartmann,  in  the  primitive  stage  of  human 
development  happiness  appeared  attainable  during  the 
lifetime  of  the  individual;  this  appeared  impossible  later 
on  and  its  realization  was  referred  to  the  life  beyond  the 
tomb;  and  now  the  tendency  is  to  refer  its  realization  to 
the  earthly  life  of  humanity,  not  to  the  life  of  the  in¬ 
dividual  as  in  primitive  times,  but  to  series  of  generations 
yet  unborn. 

The  same  is  true  in  the  political  domain.  Herbert 
Spencer  remarks  (Principles  of  Sociology,  Yol.  II,  Part 
Y,  Chap.  Y,)  that  the  will  of  all — the  sovereign  element 
among  primitive  mankind — gradually  gives  way  to  the 


103 


will  of  a  single  person,  then  to  those  of  a  few  (these 
are  the  various  aristocracies:  military,  hereditary,  profes¬ 
sional  or  feudal),  and  the  popular  will  finally  tends  again 
to  become  sovereign  with  the  progress  of  democracy 
(universal  suffrage — the  referendum — direct  legislation 
by  the  people,  etc.). 

The  right  to  administer  punishment,  a  simple  de¬ 
fensive  function  among  primitive  mankind  tends  to  be¬ 
come  the  same  once  more.  Criminal  law  no  longer 
pretends  to  be  a  teleological  agency  for  the  distribution 
of  ideal  justice.  This  pretension  in  former  days  was  an 
illusion  that  the  belief  in  the  freedom  of  the  will  had 
erected  on  the  natural  foundation  of  society’s  right  of 
self-defense.  Scientific  investigations  into  the  nature  of 
crime,  as  a  natural  and  social  phenomenon,  have  demon¬ 
strated  to-day  how  absurd  and  unjustified  was  the  pre¬ 
tension  of  the  lawmaker  and  the  judge  to  weigh  and 
measure  the  guilt  of  the  delinquent  to  make  the  punish¬ 
ment  exactly  counterbalance  it,  instead  of  contenting 
themselves  with  excluding  from  civil  society,  temporarily 
or  permanently,  the  individuals  unable  to  adapt  them¬ 
selves  to  its  requirements,  as  is  done  in  the  case  of  the 
insane  and  the  victims  of  contagious  diseases. 

The  same  truth  applies  to  marriage.  The  right  of  freely 
dissolving  the  tie,  which  was  recognized  in  primitive 
society,  has  been  gradually  replaced  by  the  absolute 
formulae  of  theology  and  mysticism  which  fancy  that  the 
“free  will”  can  settle  the  destiny  of  a  person  by  a  mono¬ 
syllable  pronounced  at  a  time  when  the  physical  equili¬ 
brium  is  as  unstable  as  it  is  during  courtship  and  at 
marriage.  Later  on  the  reversion  to  the  spontaneous  and 


104 


primitive  form  of  a  union  based  on  mutual  consent  im¬ 
poses  itself  on  men,  and  the  matrimonial  union,  with  the 
increase  in  the  frequency  and  facility  of  divorce,  reverts 
to  its  original  forms  and  restores  to  the  family,  that  is 
to  say  to  the  social  cell,  a  healthier  constitution. 

This  same  phenomenon  may  he  traced  in  the  organ¬ 
ization  of  property.  Spencer  himself  has  been  forced 
to  recognize  that  there  has  been  an  inexorable  tendency 
to  a  reversion  to  primitive  collectivism  since  ownership 
in  land,  at  first  a  family  attribute,  then  industrial,  as 
he  has  himself  demonstrated,  has  reached  its  culminating 
point,  so  that  in  some  countries  (Torrens  act  in  Austra¬ 
lia)  land  has  become  a  sort  of  personal  property,  trans¬ 
ferable  as  readily  as  a  share  in  a  stock-company. 

"Read  as  proof  what  such  an  individualist  as  Herbert 
Spencer  has  written: 

“At  first  sight  it  seems  fairly  inferable  that  the  ab¬ 
solute  ownership  of  land  by  private  persons,  must  be  the 
ultimate  state  which  industrialism  brings  about.  But 
though  industrialism  has  thus  far  tended  to  individualize 
possession  of  land,  while  individualizing  all  other  posses¬ 
sion,  it  may  be  doubted  whether  the  final  stage  is  at  present 
reached.  Ownership  established  by  force  does  not  stand 
on  the  same  footing  as  ownership  established  by  contract, 
and  though  multiplied  sales  and  purchases,  treating  the 
two  ownerships  in  the  same  way,  have  tacitly  assimilated 
them,  the  assimilation  may  eventually  be  denied.  The 
analogy  furnished  by  assumed  rights  of  possession  over 
human  beings,  helps  us  to  recognize  this  possibility. 
For  while  prisoners  of  war,  taken  by  force  and  held  as 
property  in  a  vague  way  (being  at  first  much  on  a  footing 


105 


with,  other  members  of  a  household),  were  reduced  more 
definitely  to  the  form  of  property  when  the  buying  and 
selling  of  slaves  became  general;  and  while  it  might, 
centuries  ago,  have  been  thence  inferred  that  the  owner¬ 
ship  of  man  by  man  was  an  ownership  in  course  of  being 
permanently  established;1  yet  we  see  that  a  later  stage 
of  civilization,  reversing  this  process,  has  destroyed 
ownership  of  man  by  man.  Similarly,  at  a  stage  still 
more  advanced, it  may  be  that  private  ownership  of  land 
zvill  disappear  ”2 


1  It  is  known  that  Aristotle,  mistaking  for  an  absolute 
sociological  law  a  law  relative  to  his  own  time,  declared 
that  slavery  was  a  natural  institution,  and  that  men  were 
divided,  by  Nature,  into  two  classes — free  men  and  slaves. 

2  Spencer,  Principles  of  Sociology,  Vol.  II,  Part.  V.,  Chap. 
XV.,  p.  553.  New  York,  1897.  D.  Appleton  &  Co. 

This  idea,  which  Spencer  had  expressed  in  1850  in  his 
Social  Statics  is  found  again  in  his  recent  work,  Justice 
(Chap.  XI,  and  Appendix  3).  It  is  true  that  he  has  made 
a  step  backward.  He  thinks  that  the  amount  of  the  indem¬ 
nity  to  be  given  to  the  present  holders  of  the  land  would 
be  so  great  that  this  would  make  next  to  impossible  that 
“nationalization  of  the  land”  which,  as  long  ago  as  1881, 
Henry  George  considered  as  the  only  remedy,  and  that 
Gladstone  had  the  courage  to  propose  as  a  solution  of  the 
Irish  question.  Spencer  adds:  “I  adhere  to  the  inference 
originally  drawn,  that  the  aggregate  of  men  forming  the  com¬ 
munity  are  the  supreme  owners  of  the  land,  but  a  fuller  con¬ 
sideration  of  the  matter  has  led  me  to  the  conclusion  that 
individual  ownership,  subject  to  State  suzerainty,  should 
be  maintained.” 

The  “profound  study”  which  Spencer  has  made  in  Justice 
— (and,  let  us  say  between  parentheses,  this  work,  together 
with  his  “Positive  and  Negative  Beneficence”  furnishes  sad 


106 


Moreover,  this  process  of  the  socialization  of  property, 
though  a  partial  and  subordinate  process,  is  nevertheless 
so  evident  and  continuous  that  to  deny  its  existence 
would  be  to  maintain  that  the  economic  and  conse¬ 
quently  the  juridical  tendency  of  the  organization  of 
property  is  not  in  the  direction  of  a  greater  and  greater 
magnification  of  the  interests  and  rights  of  the  collectiv¬ 
ity  over  those  of  the  individual.  This,  which  is  only  a 
preponderance  to-day,  will  become  by  an  inevitable 


evidence  of  the  senile  mental  retrogression  that  even  Her¬ 
bert  Spencer  has  been  unable  to  escape;  moreover,  its  sub¬ 
jective  aridity  is  in  strange  contrast  with  the  marvelous 
wealth  of  scientific  evidence  poured  forth  in  his  earlier 
works) — is  based  on  these  two  arguments:  I.  The  present 
landed  proprietors  are  not  the  direct  descendants  of  the 
first  conquerors;  they  have,  in  general,  acquired  their  titles 
by  free  contract;  II.  Society  is  entitled  to  the  ownership  of 
the  virgin  soil,  as  it  was  before  it  was  cleared,  before  any 
improvements  or  buildings  were  put  upon  it  by  private 
owners;  the  indemnity  which  would  have  to  be  paid  for 
these  improvements  would  reach  an  enormous  figure. 

The  answer  is  that  the  first  argument  would  hold  good  if 
socialism  proposed  to  punish  the  present  owners;  but  the 
question  presents  itself  in  a  different  form.  Society  places 
the  expropriation  of  the  owners  of  land  on  the  ground  of 
“public  utility,”  and  the  individual  right  must  give  way 
before  the  rights  of  society,  just  as  it  does  at  present, 
leaving  out  of  consideration  for  the  moment  the  question 
of  indemnity.  To  reply  to  the  second  argument,  in  the 
first  place,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  improvements 
are  not  exclusively  the  work  of  the  personal  exertions  of 
the  owners.  They  represent,  at  first,  an  enormous  accumu¬ 
lation  of  fatigue  and  blood  that  many  generations  of 


i  1 


107 


evolution  a  complete  substitution  as  regards  property 
in  land  and  the  means  of  production. 

The  fundamental  thesis  of  Socialism  is  then,  to  repeat 
it  again,  in  perfect  harmony  with  that  sociological  law  of 
apparent  retrogression,  the  natural  reasons  for  which 
have  been  so  admirably  analyzed  by  M.  Loria,  thus: 
the  thought  and  the  life  of  primitive  mankind  are  mould¬ 
ed  and  directed  by  the  natural  environment  along  the 
simplest  and  most  fundamental  lines;  then  the  progress 


laborers  have  left  upon  the  soil,  in  order  to  bring  it  to  its 
present  state  of  cultivation  .  .  .  and  all  this  for  the  profit 
of  others;  there  is  also  this  fact  to  be  remembered  that 
society  itself,  the  social  life,  has  been  a  great  factor  in 
producing  these  improvements  (or  increased  values),  since 
public  roads,  railways,  the  use  of  machinery  in  agriculture, 
etc.,  have  been  the  means  of  bestowing  freely  upon  the 
landowners  large  unearned  increments  that  have  greatly 
swollen  the  prices  of  their  lands. 

Why,  finally,  if  we  are  to  consider  the  amount  and  the 
character  of  this  indemnity,  should  this  indemnity  be  total 
and  absolute?  Why,  even  under  present  conditions,  if  a 
landowner,  for  various  reasons,  such  as  cherished  memories 
connected  with  the  land,  values  it  at  a  sentimental  price, 
he  would  be  forced  under  the  right  of  eminent  domain  to 
accept  the  market  value,  without  any  extra  payment  for  his 
affection  or  sentiment.  It  would  be  just  the  same  in  the 
case  of  the  collective  appropriation  which  would,  moreover, 
be  facilitated  by  the  progressive  concentration  of  the  land 
in  the  hands  of  a  few  great  landed  proprietors.  If  we  were 
to  assure  these  proprietors,  for  the  term  of  their  natural  lives, 
a  comfortable  and  tranquil  life,  it  would  suffice  to  make 
the  indemnity  meet  all  the  requirements  of  the  most  rigorous 
equity. 


108 


of  intelligence  and  the  complexity  of  life  increasing  by 
a  law  of  evolution  give  us  an  analytical  development  of 
the  principal  elements  contained  in  the  first  genus  of 
each  institution;  this  analytical  development  is  often, 
when  once  finished,  detrimental  to  each  one  of  its  ele¬ 
ments;  humanity  itself,  arrived  at  a  certain  stage  of 
evolution,  reconstructs  and  combines  in  a  final  synthesis 
these  different  elements,  and  thus  returns  to  its  primi¬ 
tive  starting-point. 1 

This  reversion  to  primitive  forms  is  not,  however,  a 
pure  and  simple  repetition.  Therefore  it  is  called  the 
law  of  apparent  retrogression,  and  this  removes  all  force 
from  the  objection  that  socialism  would  he  a  “return 
to  primitive  barbarism”  It  is  not  a  pure  and  simple 
repetition,  but  it  is  the  concluding  phase  of  a  cycle,  of 
a  grand  rhythm,  as  M.  Asturaro  recently  put  it,  which 
infallibly  and  inevitably  preserves  in  their  integrity  the 
achievements  and  conquests  of  the  long  preceding  evolu¬ 
tion,  in  so  far  as  they  are  vital  and  fruitful ;  and  the  final 
outcome  is  far  superior,  objectively  and  subjectively,  to 
the  primitive  social  embryo. 


1  Loria,  La  Teoria  economica  della  constituzione  politica, 
Turin,  1886,  p.  141.  The  second  edition  of  this  work  has 
appeared  in  French,  considerably  enlarged:  Les  bases  eco - 
nomiques  de  la  constitution  sociale,  Paris,  1893.  (This  has  also 
been  translated  into  English. — Tr.) 

This  law  of  apparent  retrogression  alone  overthrows  the 
greater  part  of  the  far  too  superficial  criticisms  that  Guyot 
makes  upon  socialism  in  La  Tyrannie  socialiste,  Paris,  1893 
(published  in  English,  by  Swan  Sonnenschein,  London,)  and  in 
Les  Prmcipes  de  1789  et  le  Socialisme ,  Paris,  1894. 


109 


The  track  of  the  social  evolution  is  not  represented 
by  a  closed  circle,  which,  like  the  serpent  in  the  old 
symbol,  cuts  off  all  hope  of  a  better  future;  hut,  to  use 
the  figure  of  Goethe,  it  is  represented  by  a  spiral,  which 
seems  to  return  upon  itself,  but  which  always  advances 
and  ascends. 


THE  SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  INDIVIDUAL  LIBERTY. 

The  conclusion  of  the  preceding  chapter  will  he  of 
use  to  us  in  the  examination  of  the  second  contradiction 
that,  it  is  pretended,  exists  between  socialism  and  the 
theory  of  evolution.  It  is  asserted  and  repeated  in  all 
possible  tones  that  socialism  constitutes  a  tyranny  under 
a  new  form  which  will  destroy  all  the  blessings  of  liberty 
won  with  such  toil  and  difficulty  in  our  century,  at  the 
cost  of  so  many  sacrifices  and  of  so  many  martyrs. 

I  have  already  shown,  in  speaking  of  anthropological 
inequalities,  that  socialism  will,  on  the  contrary,  assure 
to  all  individuals  the  conditions  of  a  human  existence 
and  the  possibility  of  developing  with  the  utmost  free¬ 
dom  and  completeness  their  own  respective  individu¬ 
alities. 

It  is  sufficient  here  for  me  to  refer  to  another  law, 
which  the  scientific  theory  of  evolution  has  established, 
to  demonstrate  (since  I  cannot  in  this  monograph  enter 
into  details)  that  it  is  an  error  to  assume  that  the  ad¬ 
vent  of  socialism  wrould  result  in  the  suppression  of  the 
vital  and  vitalizing  part  of  personal  and  political  liberty. 

It  is  a  law  of  natural  evolution,  set  forth  and  illus¬ 
trated  with  remarkable  clearness  by  M.  Ardigo1,  that 

1  Ardig6,  La  formazione  naturale,  Vol.  II.  of  his  Opere 
filosofiche,  Padua,  1897. 


each  succeeding  phase  of  the  natural  and  social  evolution 
does  not  destroy  the  vital  and  life-giving  manifestations 
of  the  preceding  phases,  but  that,  on  the  contrary,  it 
preserves  their  existence  in  so  far  as  they  are  vital  and 
only  eliminates  their  pathological  manifestations. 

In  the  biological  evolution,  the  manifestations  of  veg¬ 
etable  life  do  not  efface  the  first  glimmerings  of  the 
dawn  of  life  that  are  seen  even  before  in  the  crystalliza¬ 
tion  of  minerals,  any  more  than  the  manifestations  of 
animal  life  efface  those  of  vegetable  life.  The  human 
form  of  life  also  permits  the  continued  existence  of  the 
forms  and  links  which  precede  it  in  the  great  series  of 
living  beings,  but,  more  than  this,  the  later  forms  only 
really  live  in  so  far  as  they  are  the  product  of  the 
primitive  forms  and  co-exist  with  them. 

The  sociaKevolution  follows  the  same  law:  and  this 
is  precisely  the  interpretation  of  transition  periods  given 
by  scientific  evolutionism.  They  did  not  annihilate  the 
conquests  of  the  preceding  civilizations,  but  they  pre¬ 
served,  on  the  contrary,  whatever  was  vital  in  them  and 
fecundated  them  for  the  Renaissance  of  a  new  civiliza¬ 
tion. 

This  law,  which  dominates  all  the  magnificent  de¬ 
velopment  of  the  social  life,  equally  governs  the  fate 
and  the  parabolic  career  of  all  social  institutions. 

One  phase  of  social  evolution  by  following  upon  an¬ 
other  phase  eliminates,  it  is  true,  the  parts  that  are  not 
vital,  the  pathological  products  of  preceding  institutions, 
but  it  preserves  and  develops  the  parts  that  are  healthy 
and  vigorous  while  ever  elevating  more  and  more  the 
physical  and  moral  diapason  of  humanity. 


112 


By  this  natural  process  the  great  stream  of  humanity 
issued  from  the  virgin  forests  of  savage  life  and  devel¬ 
oped  with  majestic  grandeur  during  the  periods  of  bar¬ 
barism  and  the  present  civilization,  which  are  superior  in 
some  respects  to  the  preceding  phases  of  the  social  life, 
but  in  many  others  are  marred  by  the  very  products  of 
their  own  degeneracy,  as  I  pointed  out  in  speaking  of 
reactionary  varieties  of  social  selection. 

And,  as  an  example  of  this,  it  is  certain  that  the 
laborers  of  the  contemporaneous  period,  of  the  bourgeois 
civilization  have,  in  general,  a  better  physical  and  moral 
life  than  those  of  past  centuries,  but  it  cannot  be  de¬ 
nied  none  the  less  that  their  condition  as  free  wage¬ 
workers  is  inferior  in  more  than  one  particular  to  the 
condition  of  the  slaves  of  antiquity  and  of  the  serfs 
of  the  Middle  Ages. 

The  slave  of  antiquity  was,  it  is  true,  the  absolute 
property  of  his  master,  of  the  free  man,  and  he  was 
condemned  to  well  nigh  an  animal  existence,  but  it  was 
to  the  interest  of  his  master  to  assure  him  daily  bread 
at  the  least,  for  the  slave  formed  a  part  of  his  estate, 
like  his  cattle  and  horses. 

Just  so,  the  serf  or  villein  of  the  Middle  Ages  en¬ 
joyed  certain  customary  rights  which  attached  him  to 
the  soil  and  assured  him  at  the  least — save  in  case  of 
famine — of  daily  bread. 

The  free  wage-worker  of  the  modern  world,  on  the 
contrary,  is  always  condemned  to  labor  inhuman  both  in 
its  duration  and  its  character,  and  this  is  the  justification 
of  that  demand  for  an  Eight-Hours  day  which  can  al¬ 
ready  count  more  than  one  victory  and  which  is  destined 


113 


to  a  sure  triumph.  As  no  permanent  legal  relation  binds 
the  wage-slave  either  to  the  capitalist  proprietor  or  to 
the  soil,  his  daily  bread  is  not  assured  to  him,  because 
the  proprietor  no  longer  has  any  interest  to  feed  and 
support  the  laborers  who  toil  in  his  factory  or  on  his 
field.  The  death  or  sickness  of  the  laborer  cannot,  in 
fact,  cause  any  decrease  of  his  estate  and  he  can  always 
draw  from  the  inexhaustible  multitude  of  laborers  who 
are  forced  by  lack  of  employment  to  offer  themselves  on 
the  market. 

That  is  why — not  because  present-day  proprietors  are 
more  wicked  than  those  of  former  times,  but  because 
even  the  moral  sentiments  are  the  result  of  economic 
conditions — the  landed  proprietor  or  the  superintendent 
of  his  estate  hastens  to  have  a  veterinary  called  if,  in 
his  stable,  a  cow  becomes  ill,  while  he  is  in  no  hurry  to 
have  a  doctor  called  if  it  is  the  son  of  the  cow-herd  who 
is  attacked  by  disease. 

{Certainly  there  may  be — and  these  are  more  or  less 
requent  exceptions — here  and  there  a  proprietor  who 
contradicts  this  rule,  especially  when  he  lives  in  daily  con¬ 
tact  with  his  laborers.  Neither  can  it  be  denied  that  the 
rich  classes  are  moved  at  times  by  the  spirit  of  benev¬ 
olence — even  apart  from  the  charity  fad — and  that  they 
thus  put  to  rest  the  inner  voice,  the  symptom  of  the 
moral  disease  from  which  they  suffer,  but  the  inexorable 
rule  is  nevertheless  as  follows :  with  the  modern  form  of 
industry  the  laborer  has  gained  political  liberty,  the 
right  of  suffrage,  of  association,  etc.  (rights  which  he 
is  allowed  to  use  only  when  he  does  not  utilize  them 
to  form  a  class-party,  based  on  intelligent  apprehension 


X3 


Wk 

V 

\ 

k 


\ 


V. 


' 


114  — 


of  the  essential  point  of  the  social  question),  hut  he  has 
lost  the  guarantee  of  daily  bread  and  of  a  home.| 

Socialism  wishes  to  give  this  guarantee  to  all  indi¬ 
viduals — and  it  demonstrates  the  mathematical  possibil¬ 
ity  of  this  by  the  substitution  of  social  ownership  for 
individual  ownership  of  the  means  of  production — but 
it  does  not  follow  from  this  that  socialism  will  do  away 
with  all  the  useful  and  truly  fruitful  conquests  of  the 
present  phase  of  civilization,  and  of  the  preceding 
phases. 

|  And  here  is  a  characteristic  example  of  this:  the  inven¬ 
tion  of  industrial  and  agricultural  machinery,  that  mar¬ 
velous  application  of  science  to  the  transformation  of 
natural  forces  which  ought  to  have  had  only  beneficent 
consequences,  has  caused  and  is  still  causing  the  misery 
and  ruin  of  thousands  and  thousands  of  laborers.  The 
substitution  of  machines  for  human  labor  has  inevitably 
condemned  multitudes  of  workers  to  the  tortures  of  en¬ 
forced  idleness  and  to  the  ruthless  action  of  the  iron 
law  of  minimum  wages  barely  sufficient  to  prevent  them 
from  dying  of  hunger.! 

The  first  instinctive  reaction  or  impulse  of  these  un¬ 
fortunates  was  and  still  is,  unhappily,  to  destroy  the 
machines  and  to  see  in  them  only  the  instruments  of  their 
undeserved  sufferings. 

But  the  destruction  of  the  machines  would  be,  in  fact, 
only  a  pure  and  simple  return  to  barbarism,  and  that  is 
not  the  wish  or  purpose  of  socialism  which  represents 
a  higher  phase  of  human  civilization. 

And  this  is  why  socialism  alone  can  furnish  a  solu¬ 
tion  of  this  tragic  difficulty  which  can  not  be  solved  by 


115 


economic  individualism  which  involves  the  constant  em¬ 
ployment  and  introduction  of  improved  machinery  be¬ 
cause  its  use  gives  an  evident  and  irresistible  advantage 
to  the  capitalist. 

It  is  necessary — and  there  is  no  other  solution — that 
the  machines  become  collective  or  social  property.  Then, 
obviously,  their  only  effect  will  be  to  diminish  the  ag¬ 
gregate  amount  of  labor  and  muscular  effort  necessary 
to  produce  a  given  quantity  of  products.  And  thus  the 
daily  work  of  each  worker  will  be  decreased,  and  his 
standard  of  existence  will  constantly  rise  and  become 
more  closely  correspondent  with  the  dignity  of  a  human 
being. 

This  effect  is  already  manifest,  to  a  limited  extent,  in 
those  cases  where,  for  instance,  several  small  farm  propri¬ 
etors  found  co-operative  societies  for  the  purchase  of, 
for  example,  threshing-machines.  If  there  should  be 
joined  to  the  small  proprietors,  in  a  grand  fraternal  co¬ 
operation,  the  laborers  or  peasants  (and  this  will  be 
possible  only  when  the  land  shall  have  become  social 
property),  and  if  the  machines  were  municipal  property, 
for  example,  as  are  the  fire-engines,  and  if  the  commune 
were  to  grant  their  use  for  the  labors  of  the  fields,  the 
machines  would  no  longer  produce  any  evil  effects  and 
all  men  would  see  in  them  their  liberators. 

It  is  thus  that  socialism,  because  it  represents  a  higher 
phase  of  human  evolution,  would  eliminate  from  the  pres¬ 
ent  phase  only  the  bad  products  of  our  unbridled  eco¬ 
nomic  individualism  which  creates,  at  one  pole,  the  bil¬ 
lionaires  or  “Napoleons  of  Finance”  who  enrich  them¬ 
selves  in  a  few  years  by  seizing  upon — in  ways  more  or 


116 


I  '||  «. 

less  clearly  described  in  the  penal  code — the  public 
funds,  and  which,  at  the  other  pole,  accumulates  vast 
multitudes  of  poverty-stricken  wretches  in  the  slums  of 
the  cities  or  in  the  houses  of  straw  and  mud  which  repro¬ 
duce  in  the  South  of  Italy,  the  quarters  of  the  Helots  of 
antiquity,  or  in  the  valley  of  the  Po,  the.  huts  of  the 
Australian  bushmen.1 

{  No  intelligent  socialist  has  ever  dreamt  of  not  recogniz¬ 
ing  all  that  the  bourgeoisie  has  done  for  human  civiliza¬ 
tion,  or  of  tearing  out  the  pages  of  gold  that  it  has 
written  in  the  history  of  the  civilized  world  by  its  bril¬ 
liant  development  of  the  various  nations,  by  its  marvel¬ 
ous  applications  of  science  to  industry,  and  by  the  com¬ 
mercial  and  intellectual  relations  which  it  has  devel¬ 
oped  between  different  peoples.  / 

These  are  permanent  conquests  of  human  progress, 
and  socialism  does  not  deny  them  any  more  than  it  wishes 
to  destroy  them,  and  it  accords  a  just  tribute  of  recogni¬ 
tion  to  the  generous  pioneers  who  have  achieved  them. 
The  attitude  of  socialism  toward  the  bourgeoisie  might 
be  compared  to  that  of  atheists  who  do  not  wish  either 
to  destroy  or  to  refuse  their  admiration  to  a  painting  of 
Raphael  or  to  a  statue  of  Michel-Angelo,  because  these 
works  represent  and  give  the  seal  of  eternity  to  religious 
legends. 

But  socialism  sees  in  the  present  bourgeois  civilization, 
arrived  at  its  decline,  the  sad  symptoms  of  an  irremedi- 

1  My  master,  Pietro  Ellero,  has  given,  in  La  Tirranide 
borghese,  an  eloquent  description  of  this  social  and  political 
pathology  as  it  appears  in  Italy. 


able  dissolution,  and  it  contends  that  it  is  necessary  to 
rid  the  social  organism  of  its  infectious  poison ,  and  this 
not  by  ridding  it  of  such  or  such  a  bankrupt,  of  such  or 
such  a  corrupt  official,  of  such  or  such  a  dishonest  con¬ 
tractor  ....  but  by  going  to  the  root  of  the  evil,  to  the 
indisputable  source  of  the  virulent  infection.  By  radi¬ 
cally  transforming  the  regime — through  the  substitution 
of  social  ownership  for  individual  ownership — it  is  neces¬ 
sary  to  renew  the  healthy  and  vital  forces  of  human  so¬ 
ciety,  to  enable  it  to  rise  to  a  higher  phase  of  civilization. 
Then,  it  is  true,  the  privileged  classes  will  no  longer  be 
able  to  pass  their  lives  in  idleness,  luxury  and  dissipation, 
and  they  will  have  to  make  up  their  minds  to  lead  an 
industrious  and  less  ostentatious  life,  but  the  immense 
majority  of  men  will  rise  to  the  heights  of  serene  dig¬ 
nity,  security  and  joyous  brotherhood,  instead  of  living 
in  the  sorrows,  anxieties  and  bitter  strife  of  the  present. 

An  analogous  response  may  be  made  to  that  banal  ob¬ 
jection  that  socialism  will  suppress  all  liberty — that  ob¬ 
jection  repeated  to  satiety  by  all  those  who  more  or  less 
consciously  conceal,  under  the  colors  of  political  liberal¬ 
ism,  the  tendencies  of  economic  conservatism. 

VThat  repugnance  which  many  people,  even  in  good 
faith,  show  toward  socialism,  is  it  not  the  manifestation 
of  another  law  of  human  evolution  which  Herbert  Spen¬ 
cer  has  formulated  thus :  “Every  progress  effected  is  an 
obstacle  to  further  progress”  ?  j 

This  is,  in  fact,  a  natural  psychological  tendency,  a 
tendency  analogous  to  fetishism,  to  refuse  to  consider 
the  ideal  attained,  the  progress  effected  as  a  simple  in¬ 
strument,  a  starting-point  for  further  progress  and  for 


4 


118 


the  attainment  of  new  ideals,  instead  of  contentedly  halt¬ 
ing  to  adore  as  a  fetish  the  progress  already  effected, 
which  men  are  prone  to  look  upon  as  being  so  complete 
that  it  leaves  no  room  for  new  ideals  and  higher  aspira¬ 
tions. 

|  Just  as  the  savage  adores  the  fruit-tree,  whose  bene¬ 
fits  he  enjoys,  for  itself  and  not  for  the  fruits  it  can 
yield,  and,  in  the  end,  makes  a  fetish  of  it,  an  idol  too 
holy  to  be  touched  and,  therefore,  barren;  just  as  the 
miser  who  has  learned  in  our  individualist  world  the 
value  of  money,  ends  by  adoring  the  money  in  itself  and 
for  itself,  as  a  fetish  and  an  idol,  and  keeps  it  buried  in 
a  safe  where  it  remains  sterile,  instead  of  employing  it 
as  a  means  for  procuring  himself  new  pleasures;  in  th^ 
same  way,  the  sincere  liberal,  the  son  of  the  French  Rev 
lution,  has  made  Liberty  an  idol  which  is  its  own  go: 
a  sterile  fetish,  instead  of  making  use  of  it  as  an  instr 
ment  for  new  conquests,  for  the  realization  of  new  idea 


It  is  understood  that  under  a  regime  of  political 
tyranny,  the  first  and  most  urgent  ideal  was  necessarily 
the  conquest  of  liberty  and  of  political  sovereignty. 


moral  strength  paralyzed  as  a  consequence  of  bodily  or 
cerebral  anemia  ? 

I  Of  what  worth  is  the  theoretic  share  in  political  sov¬ 
ereignty.  the  right  to  vote,  if  the  people  remain  enslaved 
by  misery,  lack  of  employment,  and  acute  or  chronic, 
hunger?)  ~ 

Liberty  for  liberty’s  sake — there  you  have  the  progress 
achieved  turned  into  an  obstacle  to  future  progress;  it 
is  a  sort  of  political  masturbation,  it  is  impotency  face 
to  face  with  the  new  necessities  of  life. 


lx 


|  Socialism,  on  the  other  hand,  says  that  just  as  the  sub¬ 
sequent  phase  of  the  social  evolution  does  not  efface  the 
conquests  of  the  preceding  phases,  neither  does  it  wish  to 
suppress  the  liberty  so  gloriously  conquered  by  the  bour¬ 
geois  world  in  1789 — but  it  does  desire  the  laborers,  after 
they  have  become  conscious  of  the  interests  and  needs 
of  their  class,  to  make  use  of  that  liberty  to  realize  a 
more  equitable  and  more  human  social  organization^ 

\ Nevertheless,  it  is  only  too  indisputable  that  under 
the  system  of  private  property  and  its  inevitable  con¬ 
sequence,  the  monopoly  of  economic  power,  the  liberty  of 
the  man  who  does  not  share  in  tins  monopoly,  is  only  an 
impotent  and  sentimental  toy.  And  when  the  workers, 
with  a  clear  consciousness  of  their  class-interests,  wish 
to  make  use  of  this  liberty,  then  the  holders  of  political 
power  are  forced  to  disown  the  great  liberal  principles, 
“the  principles  of  ’89,”  by  suppressing  all  public  liberty, 
and  they  vainly  fancy  that  they  will  be  able,  in  this  way, 
to  stop  the  inevitable  march  of  human  evolution.) 

As  much  must  be  said  of  another  accusation  made 


120 


against  socialists.  They  renounce  their  fatherland 
(pa-trie),  it  is  said,  in  the  name  of  internationalism. 

This  also  is  false. 

The  national  epopees  which,  in  our  century,  have  re¬ 
conquered  for  Italy  and  Germany  their  unity  and  their 
independence,  have  really  constituted  great  steps  for¬ 
ward,  and  we  are  grateful  to  those  who  have  given  us  a 
free  country. 

But  our  country  can  not  become  an  obstacle  to  future 
progress,  to  the  fraternity  of  all  peoples,  freed  from 
national  hatreds  which  are  truly  a  relic  of  barbarism, 
or  a  mere  bit  of  theatrical  scenery  to  hide  the  interests  of 
capitalism  which  has  been  shrewd  enough  to  realize,  for 
its  own  benefit,  the  broadest  internationalism. 

It  was  a  true  moral  and  social  progress  to  rise  above 
the  phase  of  the  communal  wars  in  Italy,  and  to  feel  our¬ 
selves  all  brothers  of  one  and  the  same  nation;  it  will 
be  just  the  same  when  we  shall  have  risen  above  the 
phase  of  “patriotic”  rivalries  to  feel  ourselves  all  broth¬ 
ers  of  one  and  the  same  humanity. 

fit  is,  nevertheless,  not  difficult  for  us  to  penetrate, 
thanks  to  the  historical  key  of  class-interests,  the  secret 
of  the  contradictions,  in  which  the  classes  in  power  move. 
When  they  form  an  international  league — the  London 
banker,  thanks  to  telegraphy,  is  master  of  the  markets  in 
Pekin,  New  York  and  St.  Petersburg — it  is  greatlyto  the 
advantage  of  that  ruling  class  to  maintain  the  artificial 
divisions  between  the  laborers  of  the  whole  world,  or 
even  those  of  old  Europe  alone,  because  it  is  only  the 
division  of  the  workers  which  makes  possible  the  main¬ 
tenance  of  the  power  of  the  capitalists.  And  to  attain 


121 


their  object,  it  suffices  to  exploit  the  primitive  fund  of 
savage  hatred  for  “foreigners.”^/ 

But  this  does  not  keep  international  socialism  from 
being,  even  from  this  point  of  view,  a  definite  moral 
scheme  and  an  inevitable  phase  of  human  evolution. 

Just  so,  and  in  consequence  of  the  same  sociological 
law,  it  is  not  correct  to  assert  that,  by  establishing  col¬ 
lective  ownership,  socialism  will  suppress  every  kind  of 
individual  ownership. 

We  must  repeat  again  that  one  phase  of  evolution  can 
not  suppress  all  that  has  been  accomplished  during  the 
preceding  phases;  it  suppresses  only  the  manifestations 
which  have  ceased  to  be  vital,  and  it  suppresses  them 
because  they  are  in  contradiction  with  the  new  conditions 
of  existence  begotten  by  the  new  phases  of  evolution. 

In  substituting  social  ownership  for  individual  owner¬ 
ship  of  the  land  and  the  means  of  production,  it  is  ob¬ 
vious  that  it  will  not  be  necessary  to  suppress  private 
property  in  the  food  necessary  to  the  individual,  nor  in 
clothing  and  objects  of  personal  use  which  will  continue' 
to  be  objects  of  individual  or  family  consumption. 

This  form  of  individual  ownership  will  then  always 
continue  to  exist,  since  it  is  necessary  and  perfectly  con¬ 
sistent  with  social  ownership  of  the  land,  mines,  factories, 
houses,  machines,  tools  and  instruments  of  labor,  and 
means  of  transportation. 

The  collective  ownership  of  libraries — which  we  see 
in  operation  under  our  eyes — does  it  deprive  individuals 
of  the  personal  use  of  rare  and  expensive  books  which 
they  would  be  unable  to  procure  in  any  other  way,  and 
does  it  not  largely  increase  the  utility  that  can  be  de- 


122 


rived  from  these  books,  when  compared  to  the  services 
that  these  hooks  could  render  if  they  were  shut  up  in 
the  private  library  of  a  useless  book-collector?  In  the 
same  way,  the  collective  ownership  of  the  land  and  the 
means  of  production,  by  securing  to  everyone  the  use 
of  the  machines,  tools  and  land,  will  only  increase  their 
utility  a  hundred-fold. 

And  let  no  one  say  that,  when  men  shall  no  longer 
have  the  exclusive  and  transferable  (by  inheritance,  etc.) 
ownership  of  wealth,  they  will  no  longer  be  impelled 
to  labor  because  they  will  no  longer  be  constrained  to 
work  by  personal  or  family  self-interest.1  We  see,  for 
example,  that,  even  in  our  present  individualist  world, 
those  survivals  of  collective  property  in  land — to  which 
Laveleye  has  so  strikingly  called  the  attention  of  socio¬ 
logists — continue  to  be  cultivated  and  yield  a  return 
which  is  not  lower  than  that  yielded  by  lands  held  in  pri¬ 
vate  ownership,  although  these  communist  or  collectivist 
farmers  have  only  the  right  of  use  and  enjoyment,  and 
not  the  absolute  title.2 


1  Richter,  Ou  mene  le  socialisme,  Paris,  1892. 

*  M.  Loria,  in  Les  Bases  foonomiques  de  la  constitution  sociale, 
Paris,  1894,  part  1st,  demonstrates,  moreover,  that  in  a 
society  based  on  collective  ownership  selfishness,  rightly 
understood  will  still  remain  the  principal  motive  of  human 
actions,  but  that  it  will  then  be  the  means  of  realizing  a 
social  harmony  of  which  it  is  the  worst  enemy  under  the 
regime  of  individualism. 

Here  is  an  example  of  this,  on  a  small  scale,  but  instruc¬ 
tive.  The  means  of  transportation  have,  in  large  cities, 
followed  the  ordinary  process  of  progressive  socialization. 


123 


If  some  of  these  survivals  of  collective  ownership  are 
disappearing,  or  if  their  administration  is  bad,  this  can 
not  be  an  argument  against  socialism,  since  it  is  easy  to 
understand  that,  in  the  present  economic  organization 
based  on  absolute  individualism,  these  organisms  do  not 
have  an  environment  which  furnishes  them  the  condi¬ 
tions  of  a  possible  existence. 

It  is  as  though  one  were  to  wish  a  fish  to  live  out  of 
water,  or  a  mammal  in  an  atmosphere  containing  no 
oxygen. 

These  are  the  same  considerations  which  condemn  to 
a  certain  death  all  those  famous  experiments — the  so¬ 
cialist,  communist  or  anarchist  colonies  which  it  has  been 
attempted  to  establish  in  various  places  as  “experimental 

At  first,  everybody  went  on  foot,  excepting  only  a  few  rich 
persons  who  were  able  to  have  horses  and  carriages;  later, 
carriages  were  made  available  for  the  public  at  a  fixed  rate 
of  hire  (the  fiacres  which  have  been  used  in  Paris  a  little 
more  than  a  century,  and  which  took  their  name  from 
Saint  Fiacre  because  the  first  cab  stood  beneath  his  image); 
then,  the  dearness  of  fiacre- hire  led  to  a  further  socializa¬ 
tion  by  means  of  omnibuses  and  tramways.  Another  step 
forward  and  the  socialization  will  be  complete.  Let  the  cab 
service,  omnibus  service,  street  railways,  bicyclettes,  etc., 
become  a  municipal  service  or  function  and  every  one  will 
be  able  to  make  use  of  it  gratis  just  as  he  freely  enjoys  the 
electric  light  on  the  streets.  It  will  be  the  same  with  the 
railways  when  they  become  a  national  public  service. 

But,  then — this  is  the  individualist  objection — everybody 
will  wish  to  ride  in  cabs  or  on  trolleys,  and  the  service 
having  to  attempt  to  satisfy  all,  will  be  perfectly  satisfactory 
to  no  one. 

This  is  not  correct.  If  the  transformation  had  to  be 


124 


trials  of  socialism.”  It  seems  not  to  have  been  under¬ 
stood  that  such  experiments  could  only  result  in  inevi¬ 
table  abortions,  obliged  as  they  are  to  develop  in  an  in¬ 
dividualist  economic  and  moral  environment  which  can 
not  furnish  them  the  conditions  essential  for  their  phys¬ 
iological  development,  conditions  which  they  will,  on  the 
contrary,  have,, when  the  whole  social  organization  shall 
be  guided  by  the  collectivist  principle,  that  is  to  say, 
when  society  shall  be  socialised.* 1 

Then  individual  tendencies  and  psychological  apti¬ 
tudes  will  adapt  themselves  to  the  environment.  It  is 
natural  that  in  an  individualist  environment,  a  world  of 
free  competition,  in  which  every  individual  sees  in  ev- 

made  suddenly,  this  might  he  a  temporary  consequence. 
But  even  now  many  ride  gratis  (on  passes,  etc.)  on  both 
railways  and  tramways. 

And  so  it  seems  to  us  that  every  one  will  wish  to  ride 
on  the  street  cars  because  the  fact  that  it  is  now  impossible 
for  many  to  enjoy  this  mode  of  locomotion  gives  rise  to  the 
desire  for  the  forbidden  fruit.  But  when  the  enjoyment  of 
it  shall  be  free  (and  there  could  be  restrictions  based  on 
the  necessity  for  such  transportation)  another  egoistic 
motive  will  come  into  play — the  physiological  need  of  walk¬ 
ing,  especially  for  well-fed  people  who  have  been  engaged 
in  sedentary  labor. 

And  so  you  see  how  individual  selfishness,  in  this  example 
of  collective  ownership  on  a  small  scale,  would  act  in  har¬ 
mony  with  the  social  requirements. 

1  Thus  it  is  easy  to  understand  how  unfounded  is  the 
reasoning  among  the  opponents  of  socialism  that  the  failure 
of  communist  or  socialist  colonies  is  an  objective  demon¬ 
stration  of  “the  instability  of  a  socialist  arrangement”  (of 
society). 


ery  other  if  not  an  adversary,  at  least  a  competitor,  anti¬ 
social  egoism  should  be  the  tendency  which  is  inevitably 
most  highly  developed,  as  a  necessary  result  of  the  in¬ 
stinct  of  self-preservation,  especially  in  these  latest 
phases  of  a  civilization  which  seems  to  be  driven  at  full 
steam,  compared  to  the  pacific  and  gentle  individualism 
of  past  centuries. 

In  an  environment  where  every  one,  in  exchange  for 
intellectual  or  manual  labor  furnished  to  society,  will 
be  assured  of  his  daily  bread  and  will  thus  be  saved  from 
daily  anxiety,  it  is  evident  that  egoism  will  have  far  fewer 
stimulants,  fewer  occasions  to  manifest  itself  than  sol¬ 
idarity,  sympathy  and  altruism  will  have.  Then  that 
pitiless  maxim — homo  homini  lupus — will  cease  to  be  true 
— a  maxim  which,  whether  we  admit  it  or  not,  poisons 
so  much  of  our  present  life. 

I  can  not  dwell  longer  on  these  details  and  I  con¬ 
clude  here  the  examination  of  this  second  pretended  op¬ 
position  between  socialism  and  evolution  by  again  point¬ 
ing  out  that  the  sociological  law  which  declares  that  the 
subsequent  phase  (of  social  evolution)  does  not  efface  the 
vital  and  fruitful  manifestations  of  the  preceding  phases 
of  evolution,  gives  us,  in  regard  to  the  social  organization 
in  process  of  formation,  a  more  exact  ( positive  or  fact- 
founded)  idea  than  our  opponents  think,  who  always 
imagine  that  they  have  to  refute  the  romantic  and  sen¬ 
timental  socialism  of  the  first  half  of  this  century.1 


1  This  is  what  Yves  Guyot,  for  example,  does  in  Lcs 
Principes  de  1789,  Paris,  1894,  when  he  declares,  in  the  name 
of  individualist  psychology,  that  “socialism  is  restrictive  and 


126 


This  shows  how  little  weight  there  is  in  the  objection 
recently  raised  against  socialism,  in  the  name  of  a  learned 
but  vague  sociological  eclecticism,  by  a  distinguished  Ital¬ 
ian  professor,  M.  Yanni. 

“Contemporary  socialism  is  not  identified  with  indi¬ 
vidualism,  since  it  places  at  the  foundation  of  the  social 
organization  a  principle  which  is  not  that  of  individual 
autonomy,  but  rather  its  negation.  If,  notwithstanding 


individualism  expansive.”  This  thesis  is,  moreover,  in  part 
true,  if  it  is  transposed. 

The  vulgar  psychology,  which  answers  the  purposes  of 
M.  Guyot  (La  Tyrannie  socialiste,  liv.  Ill,  ch.  I.),  is  content 
with  superficial  observations.  It  declares,  for  instance,  that 
if  the  laborer  works  twelve  hours,  he  will  produce  evidently 
a  third  more  than  if  he  works  eight  hours,  and  this  is  the 
reason  why  industrial  capitalism  has  opposed  and  does 
oppose  the  minimum  programme  of  the  three  eighths — 
eight  hours  for  work,  eight  hours  for  sleep  and  eight  hours 
for  meals  and  recreation. 

A  more  scientific  physio-psychological  observation  demon¬ 
strates,  on  the  contrary,  as  I  said  long  ago,  that  “man  is 
a  machine,  but  he  does  not  function  after  the  fashion  of 
a  machine,”  in  the  sense  that  man  is  a  living  machine,  and 
not  an  inorganic  machine. 


Every  one  knows  that  a  locomotive  or  a  sewing  machine 
does  in  twelve  hours  a  quantity  of  work  greater  by  one- 
third  than  it  does  in  eight  hours;  but  man  is  a  living 
machine,  subject  to  the  laws  of  physical  mechanics,  but 
also  to  those  of  biological  mechanics.  Intellectual  labor,  like 
muscular  labor,  is  not  uniform  in  quality  and  intensity 
throughout  its  duration.  Within  the  individual  limits  of 
fatigue  and  exhaustion,  it  obeys  the  law  which  Quetelet 
expressed  by  his  binomial  curve,  and  which  I  believe  to 
be  one  of  the  fundamental  laws  of  living  and  inorganic 


127 


this,  it  promulgates  individualist  ideas,  which  are  in  con¬ 
tradiction  with  its  principles,  this  does  not  signify  that 
it  has  changed  its  nature,  or  that  it  has  ceased  to  be 
socialism :  it  means  simply  that  it  lives  upon  and  by  con¬ 
tradictions.1 

When  socialism,  by  assuring  to  every  one  the  means 
of  livelihood,  contends  that  it  will  permit  the  assertion 
and  the  development  of  all  individualities,  it  does  not 

fall  into  a  contradiction  of  principles,  but  being,  as  it  is, 

-  .  - - — —  - 

nature.  At  the  start  the  force  or  the  speed  is  very  slight — 
afterward  a  maximum  of  force  or  speed  is  attained — and 
at  last  the  force  or  speed  again  becomes  very  slight. 

With  manual  labor,  as  with  intellectual  labor,  there  is  a 
maximum,  after  which  the  muscular  and  cerebral  forces 
decline,  and  then  the  wrork  drags  along  slowly  and  without 
vigor  until  the  end  of  the  forced  daily  labor.  Consider 
also  the  beneficient  suggestive  influence  of  a  reduction  of 
hours,  and  you  will  readily  understand  why  the  recent 
English  official  reports  are  so  unanswerable  on  the  excellent 
results,  even  from  the  capitalist  point  of  view,  of  the  Eight- 
Hour  reform.  The  workingmen  are  less  fatigued,  and  the 
production  is  undiminished. 

When  these  economic  reforms,  and  all  those  which  are 
based  on  an  exact  physio-psychology,  shall  be  effected  under 
the  socialist  regime — that  is  to  say,  without  the  friction 
and  the  loss  of  force  that  would  be  inevitable  under  capitalist 
individualism — it  is  evident  that  they  will  have  immense 
material  and  moral  advantages,  notwithstanding  the  a 
priori  objections  of  the  present  individualism  which  can  not 
see  or  which  forgets  the  profound  reflex  effects  of  a  change 
of  the  social  environment  on  individual  psychology. 

1  Icilio  Vanni,  La  funzione  practica  della  filosofia  del  diritto 
considerata  in  sd  e  in  rapporto  al  socialismo  contemporaneo, 
Bologne,  1894.  * 


the  approaching  phase  of  human  civilization,  it  can  not 
suppress  nor  efface  whatever  is  vital,  that  is  to  say,  com¬ 
patible  with  the  new  social  form,  in  the  preceding  phases. 
And  just  as  socialist  internationalism  is  not  in  conflict 
with  patriotism,  since  it  recognizes  whatever  is  healthy 
and  true  in  that  sentiment,  and  eliminates  only  the  path¬ 
ological  part,  jingoism,  in  the  same  way,  socialism  does 
not  draw  its  life  from  contradiction,  but  it  follows,  on 
the  contrary,  the  fundamental  laws  of  natural  evolution, 
in  developing  and  preserving  the  vital  part  of  individual¬ 
ism,  and  in  suppressing  only  its  pathological  manifesta¬ 
tions  which  are  responsible  for  the  fact  that  in  the  mod¬ 
ern  world,  as  Prampolini  said,  90  per  cent,  of  the  cells 
cf  the  social  organization  are  condemned  to  anemia  be¬ 
cause  10  per  cent,  are  ill  with  hyper-emia  and  hyper¬ 
trophy 

I 


EVOLUTION — REVOLUTION — REBELLION — INDIVIDUAL 
VIOLENCE — SOCIALISM  AND  ANARCHY. 

The  last  and  the  gravest  of  the  contradictions  that  it 
is  attempted  to  set  up  between  socialism  and  the  scientific 
theory  of  evolution,  relates  to  the  question  of  how  social¬ 
ism,  in  practice,  will  be  inaugurated  and  realized. 

Some  think  that  socialism  ought,  at  the  present  time, 
to  set  forth,  in  all  its  details,  the  precise  and  symmetrical 
form  of  the  future  social  organization. — “Show  me  a 
practical  description  of  the  new  society,  and  I  will  then 
decide  whether  I  ought  to  prefer  it  to  the  present  so¬ 
ciety.” 

Others — and  this  is  a  consequence  of  that  first  false 
conception — imagine  that  socialism  wishes  in  a  single 
day  to  change  the  face  of  the  world,  and  that  we  will  be 
able  to  go  to  sleep  in  a  world  completely  bourgeois  and  to 
wake  up  next  morning  in  a  world  completely  socialist. 

How  is  it  possible  not  to  see,  some  one  then  says,  that 
all  this  is  directly  and  thoroughly  in  conflict  with  the 
law  of  evolution,  a  law  based  on  the  two  fundamental 
ideas — which  are  characteristic  of  the  new  tendencies  of 
scientific  thought  and  which  are  in  conflict  with  the  old 
metaphysics — of  the  naturalness  and  the  gradualness  of 
1  all  phenomena  in  all  domains  of  universal  life,  from 
astronomy  to  sociology. 


fit,  p 


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It  is  indisputable  that  these  two  objections  were,  in 
great  part,  well  founded  when  they  were  directed  against 
what  Engels  has  called  “utopian  socialism  ” 

When  socialism,  before  the  time  of  Karl  Marx,  was 
merely  the  sentimental  expression  of  a  humanitarianism 
as  noble  as  it  was  neglectful  of  the  most  elementary  prin¬ 
ciples  of  exact  science,  it  was  altogether  natural  for  its 
partisans  to  give  rein  to  the  impetuosity  of  their  gen¬ 
erous  natures  both  in  their  vehement  protests  against 
social  injustices  and  in  their  reveries  and  day-dreams 
of  a  better  world,  to  which  the  imagination  strove  to  give 
precise  contours,  as  witness  all  the  utopias  from  the 
Republic  of  Plato  to  the  Looking  Backward  of 
Bellamy. 

It  is  easy  to  understand  what  opportunities  these  con¬ 
structions  afforded  to  criticism.  The  latter  was  false  in 
part,  moreover,  because  it  was  the  offspring  of  the  habits 
of  thought  peculiar  to  the  modern  world,  and  which  will 
change  with  the  change  in  the  environment,  but  it  was 
well  founded  in  part  also  because  the  enormous  com¬ 
plexity  of  social  phenomena  makes  it  impossible  to 
prophesy  in  regard  to  all  the  details  of  a  social  organ¬ 
ization  which  will  differ  from  ours  more  profoundly  than 
the  present  society  differs  from  that  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
because  the  bourgeois  world  has  retained  the  same  found¬ 
ation,  individualism,  as  the  society  which  preceded  it, 
while  the  socialist  world  will  have  a  fundamentally  dif¬ 
ferent  polarization. 

These  prophetic  constructions  of  a  new  social  order 
are,  moreover,  the  natural  product  of  that  artificiality 
in  politics  and  sociology,  with  which  the  most  orthodox 


131 


individualists  are  equally  deeply  imbued,  individualists 
who  imagine,  as  Spencer  has  remarked,  that  human  so¬ 
ciety  is  like  a  piece  of  dough  to  which  the  law  can  give 
one  form  rather  than  another,  without  taking  into  ac¬ 
count  the  organic  and  psychical,  ethical  and  historical 
qualities,  tendencies  and  aptitudes  of  the  different  peo¬ 
ples. 

Sentimental  socialism  has  furnished  some  attempts 
at  utopian  construction,  but  the  modern  world  of  politics 
has  presented  and  does  present  still  more  of  them  with 
the  ridiculous  and  chaotic  mess  of  laws  and  codes  which 
surround  every  man  from  his  birth  to  his  death,  and 
even  before  he  is  born  and  after  he  is  dead,  in  an  in¬ 
extricable  network  of  codes,  laws,  decrees  and  regula¬ 
tions  which  stifle  him  like  the  silk-worm  in  the  cocoon. 

And  every  day,  experience  shows  us  that  our  legisla¬ 
tors,  imbued  with  this  political  and  social  artificiality, 
do  nothing  but  copy  the  laws  of  the  most  dissimilar 
peoples,  according  as  the  fashion  comes  from  Paris  or 
Berlin, — instead  of  carefully  studying  the  facts  of  actual 
life,  the  conditions  of  existence  and  the  interests  of  the 
people  in  their  respective  countries,  in  order  to  adapt 
their  laws  to  them,  laws  which — if  this  is  not  done — re¬ 
main,  as  abundant  examples  show,  dead  letters  because 
the  reality  of  the  facts  of  life  does  not  permit  them  to 
strike  their  roots  into  the  social  soil  and  to  develop  a 
fruitful  life.1 


1  We  have  a  typical  example  of  this  in  the  new  Italian 
penal  code,  which,  as  I  said  before  its  enforcement,  shows 
no  signs  of  special  adaptation  to  Italian  conditions. 

It  might  just  as  well  be  a  code  made  for  Greece  or  Nor- 


On  the  subject  of  artificial  social  constructions,  the 
socialists  might  say  to  the  individualists:  let  him  who 
is  without  sin,  cast  the  first  stone. 

The  true  reply  is  wholly  different.  Scientific  social¬ 
ism  represents  a  much  more  advanced  phase  of  socialist 
thought;  it  is  in  perfect  harmony  with  modern,  experien¬ 
tial  science,  and  it  has  completely  abandoned  the  fan¬ 
tastic  idea  of  prophesying,  at  the  present  time,  what 
human  society  will  be  under  the  new  collectivist  organi¬ 
zation. 


What  scientific  socialism  can  affirm  and  does  affirm 
with  mathematical  certainty,  is  that  the  current,  the 
trajectory,  of  human  evolution  is  in  the  general  direction 
pointed  out  and  foreseen  by  socialism,  that  is  to  say,  in 
the  direction  of  a  continuously  and  progressively  increas¬ 
ing  preponderance  of  the  interests  and  importance  of  the 
species  over  the  interests  and  importance  of  the  indi¬ 
vidual — and,  therefore,  in  the  direction  of  a  continuous 
socialization  of  the  economic  life,  and  with  and  in  con¬ 
sequence  of  that,  of  the  juridical,  moral  and  political 
life. 

As  to  the  petty  details  of  the  new  social  edifice,  we  are 
unable  to  foresee  them,  precisely  because  the  new  social 
edifice  will  be,  and  is,  a  natural  and  spontaneous  product 
of  human  evolution,  a  prdduct  which  is  already  in  pro¬ 
cess  of  formation,  and  the  general  outlines  of  which  are 

way,  and  it  has  borrowed  from  the  countries  of  the  north 
the  system  of  confinement  in  cells,  which  even  then  in  the 
north  was  recognized  in  all  its  costly  absurdity  as  a  system 
devised  for  the  brutalization  of  men. 


133 


already  visible,  and  not  an  artificial  construction  of  the 
imagination  of  some  utopian  or  idealist. 

The  situation  is  the  same  in  the  social  sciences  and  the 
natural  sciences.  In  embryology  the  celebrated  law  of 
Haeckel  tells  us  that  the  development  of  the  individual 
embryo  reproduces  in  miniature  the  various  forms  of 
development  of  the  animal  species  which  have  preceded 
it  in  the  zoological  series.  But  the  biologist,  by  study¬ 
ing  a  human  embryo  of  a  few  days’  or  a  few  weeks’ 
growth,  can  not  tell  whether  it  will  be  male  or  female, 
and  still  less  whether  it  will  be  a  strong  or  a  weak  in¬ 
dividual,  phlegmatic  or  nervous,  intelligent  or  not. 

He  can  only  tell  the  general  lines  of  the  future  evolu¬ 
tion  of  that  individual,  and  must  leave  it  to  time  to  show 
the  exact  character  of  all  the  particular  details  of  its 
personality,  which  will  be  developed  naturally  and  spon¬ 
taneously,  in  conformity  with  the  hereditary  organic 
conditions  and  the  conditions  of  the  environment  in 
which  it  will  live. 

This  is  what  can  be  and  what  must  be  the  reply  of  ev¬ 
ery  socialist.  This  is  the  position  taken  by  Bebel  in  the 
German  Reichstag  1  in  his  reply  to  those  who  wish  to 
know  at  the  present  time  what  all  the  details  of  the 
future  State  will  be,  and  who  skilfully  profiting  by  the 
ingenuity  of  the  socialist  romancers,  criticize  their  arti¬ 
ficial  fantasies  which  are  true  in  their  general  outlines, 
but  arbitrary  in  their  details. 

It  would  have  been  just  the  same  thing  if,  before  the 
French  Revolution,— which,  as  it  were,  hatched  out  the 


1  Bebel,  Zukunftstaat  und  Sozialdcmokratie,  1893. 


bourgeois  world,  prepared  and  matured  during  the  pre¬ 
vious  evolution, — the  nobility  and  the  clergy,  the  classes 
then  in  power,  had  asked  the  representatives  of  the  Third 


Estate — bourgeois  by  birth,  though  some  aristocrats  or 
priests  embraced  the  cause  of  the  bourgeoisie  against  the 
privileges  of  their  caste,  as  the  Marquis  de  Mirabeau  and 
the  Abbe  Sieyes — “But  what  sort  of  a  world  will  this 
%  new  world  of  yours  be?  Show  us  first  its  exact  plan, 
and  after  that  we  will  decide !” 

The  Third  Estate,  the  bourgeoisie,  would  not  have 
been  able  to  answer  this  question,  because  it  was  im¬ 
possible  for  them  to  foresee  what  the  human  society  of 
the  nineteenth  century  was  to  be.  But  this  did  not 
prevent  the  bourgeois  revolution  from  taking  place  be¬ 
cause  it  represented  the  next  natural  and  inevitable  phase 
of  an  eternal  evolution.  This  is  now  the  position  of  so¬ 
cialism  with  relation  to  the  bourgeois  world.  And  if 
this  bourgeois  world,  born  only  about  a  century  ago,  is 
destined  to  have  a  much  shorter  historical  cycle  than 
the  feudal  (aristocratico-clerical)  world,  this  is  simply 
because  the  marvelous  scientific  progress  of  the  nine¬ 
teenth  century  has  increased  a  hundred-fold  the  rapidity 
of  life  in  time  and  has  nearly  annihilated  space,  and, 
therefore,  civilized  humanity  traverses  now  in  ten  years 
the  same  road  that  it  took,  in  the  Middle  Ages,  a  cen¬ 
tury  or  two  to  travel. 

The  continuously  accelerated  velocity  of  human  evolu¬ 
tion  is  also  one  of  the  laws  established  and  proved  by 
modern  social  science. 

It  is  the  artificial  constructions  of  sentimental  social- 

t 

ism  which  have  given  birth  to  the  idea — correct  so  far 


- 

If 

f 


+*%0f>* 


u  p> 


/ 


,/\ 


as  they  are  concerned — that  socialism  is  synonymous  with 
^  tyranny.  '  ■■■  »,  . . . . . „,„ . . . n~r 

It  is  evident  that  if  the  new  social  organization  is  not 
(  the  spontaneous  form  naturally  produced  by  the  human 
evolution,  hut  rather  an  artificial  construction  that  has 
issued  complete  in  every  detail  from  the  brain  of  some 


*V 


social  architect,  the  latter  will  be  unable  to  avoid  regu¬ 
lating  the  new  social  machinery  by  an  infinite  number 
of  rules  and  by  the  superior  authority  which  he  will  as¬ 
sign  to  a  controlling  intelligence,  either  individual  or 
collective.  It  is  easy  to  understand  then,  how  such  an 
organization  gives  rise  in  its  opponents— who  see  in  the 
indiv  idualist  world  only  the  advantages  of  liberty,  and 
who  forget  the  evils  which  so  copiously  flow  from  it _ _ 

the  impression  of  a  system  of  monastic  or  military  dis¬ 
cipline.1 

Another  contemporary  artificial  product  has  contri¬ 
buted  to  confirm  this  impression— State  Socialism.  At 
bottom,  it  does  not  differ  from  sentimental  or  utopian 
socialism,  and  as  Liebknecht  said  at  the  socialist  con¬ 
gress  of  Berlin  (1892),  it  would  be  “a  State  Capitalism 
which  would  join  political  slavery  to  economic  exploita¬ 
tion.^  State  Socialism  is  a  symptom  of  the  irresistible 
power  of  scientific  and  democratic  socialism— as  is  shown 
by  the  famous  rescripts  of  Emperor  William  convoking 
an  international  conference  to  solve  (this  is  the  infantile 
idea  of  the  decree)  the  problems  of  labor,  and  the  famous 
Encyclical  on  “The  Condition  of  Labor”  of  the  very  able 


3  It  is  this  artificial  socialism  which  Herbert  Spencer 
attacks. 


)  . 

JMsS 


f? 


■>  /  / 


f  1 
if 


V 


Pope,  Leo  XIII,  who  has  handled  the  subject  with  great 
tact  and  cleverness.1  But  these  imperial  rescripts  and 
these  papal  encyclicals — because  it  is  impossible  to  leap 
over  or  suppress  the  phases  of  the  social  evolution — 
could  only  result  abortively  in  our  bourgeois,  individual¬ 
ist  and  laissez  faire  world.  Certainly  it  would  not  have 
been  displeasing  to  this  bourgeois  world  to  see  the  vigor¬ 
ous  contemporary  socialism  strangled  to  death  in  the 
amorous  embraces  of  official  artificiality  and  of  State 
Socialism,  for  it  had  become  evident  in  Germany  and 
elsewhere,  that  neither  laws  nor  repressive  measures  of 
any  kind  could  kill  it.2  f 

All  that  arsenal  of  rules  and  regulations  and  provisions 
for  inspection  and  superintendence  has  nothing  in  com¬ 
mon  with  scientific  socialism  which  foresees  clearly  that 
the  executive  guidance  of  the  new  social  organization 
^yill  be  no  more  confused  than  is  the  present  administra¬ 
tion  of  the  State,  the  provinces  and  the  communes,  and 
_ 

1  See  “Socialism:  a  Reply  to  the  Pope’s  Encyclical,”  by 
Robert  Blatchford.  The  International  Publishing  Co.,  New 
York. — Tr. 

2  To  this  State  socialism  apply  most  of  the  individualist 
and  anarchist  objections  of  Spencer  in  “ Man  vs.  State” 
D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  New  York. 

You  will  recall  on  this  subject  the  celebrated  debate  be¬ 
tween  Spencer  and  Laveleye:  “The  State  and  the  Individual 
or  Social  Darwinism,  and  Christianity,”  in  the  “Contem¬ 
porary  Review,”  1885. 

Lafargue  has  also  replied  to  Spencer,  but  has  not  pointed 
out  the  fact  that  Spencer’s  criticisms  apply,  not  to  demo¬ 
cratic  socialism,  our  socialism,  but  to  State  socialism. 

See  also  Ciccotti  on  this  subject. 


—  137  — 


will,  on  the  contrary,  he  much  better  adapted  to  subserve 
the  interests  of  both  society  and  the  individual,  since 
it  will  be  a  natural  product  and  not  a  parasitic  product 
of  the  new  social  organization.  Just  so,  the  nervous  sys¬ 
tem  of  a  mammal  is  the  regulating  apparatus  of  its  or¬ 
ganism;  it  is,  certainly,  more  complex  than  that  of  the 
organism  of  a  fish  or  of  a  mollusc,  but  it  has  not,  for 
that  reason,  tyrannically  stifled  the  autonomy  of  the 
other  organs  and  anatomical  machinery,  or  of  the  cells 
in  their  living  confederation. 

|  It  is  understood,  then,  that  to  refute  socialism,  some¬ 
thing  more  is  needed  than  the  mere  repetition  of  the 
current  objections  against  that  artificial  and  sentimental 
socialism  which  still  continues  to  exist,  I  confess,  in  the 
nebulous  mass  of  popular  ideas.  But  every  day  it  is 
losing  ground  before  the  intelligent  partisans — working¬ 
men,  middle-class  or  aristocrats — of  scientific  socialism 
which  armed — thanks  to  the  impulse  received  from  the 
genius  of  Marx — with  all  the  best-established  inductions 
of  modern  science,  is  triumphing  over  the  old  objec¬ 
tions  which  our  adversaries,  through  force  of  mental 
custom,  still  repeat,  but  which  have  long  been  left  behind 
by  contemporary  thought,  together  with  the  utopian  so¬ 
cialism  which  provoked  them.  J 

The  same  reply  must  be  made  to  the  second  part  of  the 
objection,  with  regard  to  the  mode  by  which  the  advent 
of  socialism  will  be  accomplished. 

One  of  the  inevitable  and  logical  consequences  of 
utopian  and  artificial  socialism  is  to  think  that  the  archi¬ 
tectonic  construction  proposed  by  such  or  such  a  re- 


former,  ought  to  he  and  can  be  put  into  practice  in  a 
single  day  by  a  decree. 

In  this  sense  it  is  quite  true  that  the  utopian  illusion 
of  empirical  socialism  is  in  opposition  to  the  scientific 
law  of  evolution,  and,  looked  at  in  this  way ,  I  combatted 
it  in  my  book  on  Socialismo  e  Criminalitd,  because  at  that 
time  (1883)  the  ideas  of  scientific  or  Marxian  socialism 
were  not  yet  generally  disseminated  in  Italy. 

A  political  party  or  a  scientific  theory  are  natural  prod¬ 
ucts  which  must  pass  through  the  vital  phases  of  infancy 
and  youth,  before  reaching  complete  development.  It 
was,  then,  inevitable  that,  before  becoming  scientific  or 
positif  (fact-founded),  socialism,  in  Italy  as  in  other 
countries,  should  pass  through  the  infantile  phases  of 
clannish  exclusiveness — the  era  when  socialism  was  con¬ 
fined  to  organizations  of  manual  laborers — and  of  nebu¬ 
lous  romanticism  which,  as  it  gives  to  the  word  revolution 
a  narrow  and  incomplete  meaning,  is  always  fed  with 
false  hope  by  the  illusion  that  a  social  organism  can  be 
radically  changed  in  a  single  day  with  four  rifle-shots, 
just  as  a  monarchical  regime  could  thus  be  converted  into 
a  republican  regime. 

\  But  it  is  infinitely  easier  to  change  the  political  en¬ 
velope  of  a  social  organization, — because  such  a  change 
has  little  effect  on  the  economic  foundation  of  the  social 
life, — than  to  completely  revolutionize  this  social  life  in 
its  economic  constitution.  \ 

The  processes  of  social  transformation,  as  well  as — 
under  various  names — those  of  every  sort  of  transforma¬ 
tion  in  living  organisms  are:  evolution, — revolution, — 
rebellion, — individual  violence. 


139 


A  mineral  or  vegetable  or  animal  species  may  pass 
through,  during  the  cycle  of  its  existence,  these  four 
processes. 

As  long  as  the  structure  and  the  volume  of  the  centre 
of  crystallization,  the  germ,  or  the  embryo,  increase 
gradually,  we  have  a  gradual  and  continuous  process  of 
evolution ,  which  must  be  followed  at  a  definite  stage  by  a 
process  of  revolution,  more  or  less  prolonged,  represented, 
for  example,  by  the  separation  of  the  entire  crystal  from 
the  mineral  mass  which  surrounds  it,  or  by  certain  revo¬ 
lutionary  phases  of  vegetable  or  animal  life,  as,  for  ex¬ 
ample,  the  moment  of  sexual  reproduction;  there  may 
also  be  a  period  of  rebellion,  that  is  to  say,  of  organized 
personal  violence,  a  frequent  and  wTell-verified  phenom¬ 
enon  among  those  species  of  animals  who  live  in  societies; 
there  may  also  be  isolated  instances  of  personal  violence, 
as  in  the  struggles  to  obtain  food  or  for  possession  of  the 
females  between  animals  of  the  same  species. 

These  same  processes  also  occur  in  the  human  world. 
By  evolution  must  be  understood  the  transformation  that 
takes  place  day  by  day,  which  is  almost  unnoticed,  but 
continuous  and  inevitable ;  by  revolution,  the  critical  and 
decisive  period,  more  or  less  prolonged,  of  an  evolution 
that  has  reached  its  concluding  phase;  by  rebellion,  the 
partially  collective  violence  which  breaks  out,  upon  the 
occasion  of  some  particular  circumstance,  at  a  definite 
place  and  time;  and  by  individual  violence,  the  action  of 
one  individual  against  one  or  several  others,  which  may 
be  the  effect  of  a  fanatical  passion  or  of  criminal  instincts, 
or  the  manifestation  of  a  lack  of  mental  equilibrium,— 


140 


and  which  identifies  itself  with  the  political  or  religious 
ideas  most  in  vogue  at  the  moment. 

It  must  be  remarked,  in  the  first  place,  that  while  revo¬ 
lution  and  evolution  are  normal  functions  of  social  phys¬ 
iology,  rebellion  and  individual  violence  are  symptoms  of 
social  pathology. 

These  are,  nevertheless,  merely  natural  and  spontane¬ 
ous  processes,  since,  as  Virchow  has  shown,  pathology  is 
merely  the  sequel  of  normal  physiology.  Besides,  the 
pathological  symptoms  have,  or  should  have,  a  great 
diagnostical  value  for  the  classes  in  power;  but  the  lat¬ 
ter,  unfortunately,  in  every  period  of  history,  in  times 
of  political  crisis,  as  in  those  of  social  crisis,  have  shown 
themselves  unable  to  conceive  of  any  other  remedy  than 
brutal  repression — the  guillotine  or  the  prison — and  they 
fancy  that  thus  they  can  cure  the  organic  and  constitu¬ 
tional  disease  which  vexes  the  social  body.1 

But  it  is  indisputable,  at  all  events,  that  the  normal 
processes  of  social  transformation  (and  because  they  are 
normal,  the  most  fruitful  and  the  surest,  although  the 
slowest  and  the  least  effective  in  appearance)  are  evolu- 


1  At  the  moment  when  I  was  correcting  the  proofs  of  the 
Italian  edition  of  this  work,  M.  Crispi  had  just  proposed 
the  “exceptional  laws  for  the  public  safety,”  which,  using 
the  outrages  of  the  anarchists  as  a  pretext,  aimed  by  this 
method  to  strike  a  blow  at  and  to  suppress  socialism. 

Repressive  laws  can  suppress  men,  but  not  ideas.  Has  the 
failure  of  the  exceptional  laws  against  the  socialist  party 
in  Germany  been  forgotten? 

It  is  possible  to  increase  the  number  of  crimes,  to  sup¬ 
press  public  liberties  .  .  .  but  that  is  no  remedy.  Socialism 
will  continue  its  forward  march  just  the  same. 


141 


tion  and  revolution,  using  the  latter  term  in  its  accurate 
and  scientific  sense,  as  the  concluding  phase  of  an  evolu¬ 
tion,  and  not  in  the  current  and  incorrect  sense  of  a 
stormy  and  violent  revolt. 1 

It  is  evident,  in  fact,  that  Europe  and  America  are, 
in  these  closing  years  of  the  nineteenth  century,  in  a 
period  of  revolution,  prepared  by  the  evolution  begotten 
by  the  bourgeois  organization  itself  and  promoted  by 
utopian  socialism  as  well  as  by  scientific  socialism.  Like¬ 
wise,  we  are  in  that  period  of  social  life  which  Bagehot 
calls  “the  age  of  discussion, ”  2  and  already  we  can  see 
what  Zola  has  called,  in  Germinal,  the  cracking  of  the 
politico-social  crust,  and,  in  fact,  all  those  symptoms 
which  Taine  lias  described  in  his  VAncien  Regime,  in  re¬ 
lating  the  history  of  the  twenty  years  which  preceded 
1780.  As  repressive  methods  are  of  no  avail  against  do¬ 
mestic  revolution,  and  only  serve  to  expose  the  symptoms, 
there  can  be  nothing  efficacious  and  productive  of  good 
results,  except  laws  of  social  reform  and  preparation 
which,  while  safe-guarding  the  present  society,  will  ren¬ 
der  less  painful,  as  Marx  said,  “the  birth  of  the  new  so¬ 
ciety.” 

In  this  sense,  evolution  and  revolution  constitute  the 
most  fruitful  and  surest  processes  of  social  metamor¬ 
phosis.  As  human  society  forms  a  natural  and  living 
organism,  like  all  other  organisms,  it  can  not  endure 


1  Lombroso  and  Laschi,  Le  Crime  politique,  etc.,  and  the 
monograph  of  Elisee  Reclus,  Evolution  et  Revolution. 

2  Walter  Bagehot,  Physics  and  Politics.  D.  Appleton 
&  Co, 


142 


sudden  transformations,  as  those  imagine  who  think 
that  recourse  must  he  had  only  or  by  preference  to  rebel¬ 
lion  or  personal  violence  to  inaugurate  a  new  social  or¬ 
ganization.  This  seems  to  me  like  imagining  that  a  child 
or  a  youth  could,  in  a  single  day,  accomplish  a  biological 
evolution  and  become  forthwith  an  adult.* 1 


It  is  easv  to  understand  how  a  man  out  of  work,  in  the 
horrors  of  starvation,  his  brain  giving  way  for  want  of 
nourishment,  may  fancy  that  by  giving  a  policeman  a 
blow  with  his  fist,  by  throwing  a  bomb,  by  raising  a  bar¬ 
ricade,  or  by  taking  part  in  a  riot,  he  is  hastening  the 
realization  of  a  social  ideal,  from  which  injustice  will 
have  vanished. 

And,  even  apart  from  such  cases,  it  is  possible  to  un¬ 
derstand  how  the  power  of  impulsive  feeling,  the  dom¬ 
inant  factor  in  some  natures,  may,  through  a  generous 
impatience,  lead  them  to  make  some  real  attempt — and 
not  imaginary  like  those  which  the  police  in  all  times 
and  all  countries  prosecute  in  the  courts — to  spread  ter¬ 
ror  among  those  who  feel  the  political  or  economic  power 
slipping  from  their  hands. 

But  scientific  socialism,  especially  in  Germany,  under 


1It  is  this  lack  of  even  elementary  knowledge  of  geology, 
biology,  etc.,  which  makes  the  vague  ideal  of  anarchy  so 
attractive  to  many  men  of  the  people  with  really  bright 
minds,  but  with  no  scientific  training,  even  though  they 
repudiate  the  employment  of  violent  methods. 

I  In  my  opinion  a  more  wide-spread  instruction  in  the 
natural  sciences — together  with  their  substitution  for  the 
classics — would  do  more  than  any  repressive  laws  to  sup¬ 
press  the  outrages  of  anarchy.  \ 


143 


the  direct  influence  of  Marxism,  has  completely  aban¬ 
doned  those  old  methods  of  revolutionary  romanticism. 
Though  they  have  often  been  employed,  they  have  al¬ 
ways  resulted  abortively,  and  for  that  very  reason  the 
ruling  classes  no  longer  dread  them,  since  they  are  only 
light,  localized  assaults  on  a  fortress  which  still  has  more 
than  sufficient  resistant  power  to  remain  victorious  and 
by  this  victory  to  retard  temporarily  the  evolution  by 
removing  from  the  scene  the  strongest  and  boldest  ad¬ 
versaries  of  the  status  quo. 

Marxian  socialism  is  revolutionary  in  the  scientific 
meaning  of  the  wTord,  and  it  is  now  developing  into  open 
social  revolution — no  one  will  attempt  to  deny,  I  think, 
that  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  century  marks  the  crit¬ 
ical  phase  of  the  bourgeois  evolution  rushing  under  a 
full  head  of  steam,  even  in  Italy,  along  the  road  of  in¬ 
dividualist  capitalism. 

Marxian  socialism  has  the  candor  to  say,  through  the 
mouths  of  its  most  authoritative  spokesmen,  to  the  great 
suffering  host  of  the  modern  proletariat,  that  it  has  no 
magic  wand  to  transform  the  world  in  a  single  day,  as 
one  shifts  the  scenes  in  a  theatre;  it  says  on  the  contrary, 
repeating  the  prophetic  exhortation  of  Marx,  “ Proleta¬ 
rians  of  all  countries ,  unite ”  that  the  social  revolution 
can  not  achieve  its  object,  unless  it  first  becomes  a  vivid 
fact  in  the  minds  of  the  workers  themselves  by  virtue 
of  the  clear  perception  of  their  class-interests  and  of  the 
strength  which  their  union  will  give  them,  and  that  they 
will  not  wake  up  some  day  under  a  full-fledged  socialist 
regime,  because  divided  and  apathetic  for  364  days  out 
of  the  year  they  shall  rebel  on  the  365th,  or  devote  them- 


144 


selves  to  the  perpetration  of  some  deed  of  personal 
violence. 

This  is  what  I  call  the  psychology  of  the  “gros  lot ”  (the 
capital  prize  in  a  lottery,  etc.).  Many  workingmen  imag¬ 
ine,  in  fact,  that — without  doing  anything  to  form  them¬ 
selves  into  a  class-conscious  party — they  will  win  some 
day  the  capital  prize,  the  social  revolution,  just  as  the 
manna  is  said  to  have  come  down  from  heaven  to  feed  the 
Hebrews. 

Scientific  socialism  has  pointed  out  that  the  trans¬ 
forming  power  decreases  as  we  descend  the  scale  from 
one  process  to  another,  that  of  revolution  being  less  than 
that  of  evolution,  and  that  of  rebellion  being  less  than 
that  of  revolution,  and  individual  violence  having  the 
least  of  all.  And  since  it  is  a  question  of  a  complete  trans¬ 
formation  of  the  entire  social  cosmos  in  its  economic 
foundation  and,  consequently,  in  its  juridical,  political 
and  ethical  organization,  the  process  of  transformation 
is  more  effective  and  better  adapted  to  the  purpose  in 
proportion  as  its  social  character  predominates  over  its 
individual  character. 

The  individualist  parties  are  individualists  even  in  the 
daily  struggle;  socialism,  on  the  contrary,  is  collectivist 
even  in  that,  because  it  knows  that  the  present  organ¬ 
ization  does  not  depend  upon  the  will  of  such  or  such 
an  individual,  but  upon  society  as  a  whole.  And  this  is 
also  one  reason  why  charity,  however  generous  it  be, 
being  necessarily  personal  and  partial,  can  not  be  a  rem¬ 
edy  for  the  social,  and  thereby  collective,  question  of 
the  distribution  of  wealth. 

In  political  questions,  which  leave  the  economico-social 


145 


foundation  untouched,  it  is  possible  to  understand  how, 
for  instance,  the  exile  of  Napoleon  III.  or  of  the  Em¬ 
peror  Don  Pedro  could  inaugurate  a  republic.  But  this 
transformation  does  not  extend  to  the  foundation  of  the 
social  life,  and  the  German  Empire  or  the  Italian  Mon¬ 
archy  are,  socially,  bourgeois  just  the  same  as  the  French 
Republic  or  the  North  American  Republic,  because  not¬ 
withstanding  the  political  differences  between  them,  they 
all  belong  to  the  same  economico-social  phase. 

This  is  why  the  processes  of  evolution  and  revolution 
— the  only  wholly  social  or  collective  processes — are  the 
most  efficacious,  while  partial  rebellion  and,  still  more, 
individual  violence  have  only  a  very  feeble  power  of  so¬ 
cial  transformation;  they  are,  moreover,  anti-social  and 
anti-human,  because  they  re-awaken  the  primitive  sav¬ 
age  instincts,  and  because  they  deny,  in  the  very  person 
whom  they  strike  down,  the  principle  with  which  they 
believe  themselves  animated — the  principle  of  respect 
for  human  life  and  of  solidarity. 

What  is  the  use  of  hypnotizing  oneself  with  phrases 
about  “the  propaganda  of  the  deed”  and  “immediate  ac¬ 
tion?” 

It  is  known  that  anarchists,  individualists,  “amor- 
phists”  and  “libertarians”  admit  as  a  means  of  social 
transformation  individual  violence  which  extends  from 
homicide  to  theft  or  estampage,  even  among  “compan¬ 
ions;”  and  this  is  then  merely  a  political  coloring  given 
to  criminal  instincts  which  must  not  be  confounded  with 
political  fanaticism,  which  is  a  very  different  phenom¬ 
enon,  common  to  the  extreme  and  romantic  parties  of 
all  times.  A  scientific  examination  of  each  case  by  itself, 


146 


with  the  aid  of  anthropology  and  psychology,  alone  can 
decide  whether  the  perpetrator  of  snch  or  such  a  deed  of 
violence  is  a  congenital  criminal,  a  criminal  through  in¬ 
sanity,  or  a  criminal  through  stress  of  political  fanati¬ 
cism. 

I  have,  in  fact,  always  maintained,  and  I  still  maintain, 
that  the  "political  criminal,”  whom  some  wish  to  class  in 
a  special  category,  does  not  constitute  a  peculiar  anthro¬ 
pological  variety,  hut  that  he  can  be  placed  under  one 
or  another  of  the  anthropological  categories  of  criminals 
of  ordinary  law,  and  particularly  one  of  these  three :  the 
born  criminal  having  a  congenital  tendency  to  crime, 
the  insane- criminal,  the  criminal  by  stress  of  fanatical 
'passion. 

The  history  of  the  past  and  of  these  latter  times  af¬ 
ford  us  obvious  illustrations  of  these  several  categories. 

In  the  Middle  Ages  religious  beliefs  filled  the  minds  of 
all  and  colored  the  criminal  or  insane  excesses  of  many 
of  the  unbalanced.  A  similar  insanity  was  the  efficient 
cause  of  the  more  or  less  hysterical  "sanctity”  of  some  of 
the  saints.  At  the  close  of  our  century  it  is  the  politico- 
social  questions  which  absorb  (and  with  what  overwhelm¬ 
ing  interest!)  the  universal  consciousness- — which  is 
stimulated  by  that  universal  contagion  created  by  jour¬ 
nalism  with  its  great  sensationalism — and  these  are  the 
questions  which  color  the  criminal  or  insane  excesses  of 
many  of  the  unbalanced,  or  which  are  the  determining 
causes  of  instances  of  fanaticism  occurring  in  men  who 
are  thoroughly  honorable,  but  afflicted  with  excessive 
sensibility. 

It  is  the  most  extreme  form  of  these  politico-social 


147 


questions  which,  in  each  historical  period,  possesses  the 
most  intense  suggestive  powder.  In  Italy  sixty  years  ago 
it  was  Mazzinnianisme  or  Carbonarisme;  twenty  years 
ago,  it  was  socialism;  now  it  is  anarchism. 

It  is  very  easy  to  understand  how  there  occurred  in 
each  period,  in  accordance  with  their  respective  domi¬ 
nant  tendencies,  deeds  of  personal  violence ....  Felice 
Orsini,  for  example,  is  one  of  the  martyrs  of  the  Italian 
Revolution. 

In  each  case  of  individual  violence,  unless  one  is  con¬ 
tent  with  the  necessarily  erroneous  judgments  begotten 
by  emotion,  to  reach  a  correct  decision  it  is  necessary 
to  make  a  physio-psychical  examination  of  the  perpe¬ 
trator,  just  as  it  is  in  the  case  of  any  other  crime. 

Felice  Orsini  was  a  political  criminal  through  passion. 
Among  the  anarchist  bomb-throwers  or  assassins  of  our 
day  may  be  found  the  born  criminal — who  simply  colors 
his  congenital  lack  of  the  moral  or  social  sense  with  a 
political  varnish — ;  the  insane-criminal  or  mattoid 
whose  mental  deficiency  becomes  blended  with  the  po¬ 
litical  ideas  of  the  period;  and  also  the  criminal  through 
political  passion,  acting  from  sincere  conviction  and 
mentally  almost  normal,  in  whom  the  criminal  action  is 
determined  (or  caused)  solely  by  the  false  idea  (which 
socialism  combats)  of  the  possibility  of  effecting  a  social 
transformation  by  means  of  individual  violence.1 

But  no  matter  whether  the  particular  crime  is  that  of 

1  Hamon,  Les  Homines  et  les  theories  de  Vanarchie,  Paris, 
1893.— Lombroso,  Ultime  scoperte  ed  applicazioni  delV  antro- 
pologia  criminate,  Turin,  1893. 


a  congenital  criminal  or  of  a  madman  or  of  a  political 
criminal  through  passion,  it  is  none  the  less  true  that 
personal  violence,  as  adopted  by  the  anarchist  individual¬ 
ists,  is  simply  the  logical  product  of  individualism  car¬ 
ried  to  extremes  and,  therefore,  the  natural  product  of 
the  existing  economic  organization — though  its  produc¬ 
tion  is  also  favored  by  the  “delirium  of  hunger,”  acute 
or  chronic;  but  it  is  also  the  least  efficacious  and  the 
most  anti-human  means  of  social  transformation.* 1 


1  At  the  moment  when  I  was  correcting  the  proofs  of  the 
Italian  edition  of  this  book,  the  emotion  had  not  yet  sub¬ 
sided  which  grew  out  of  the  harmless  attack  upon  Crispi, 
at  Rome,  on  the  16th  of  June,  and  especially  the  much 
keener  emotion  produced  by  the  death  of  the  President  of 
the  French  Republic,  Sadi  Carnot,  on  the  24th  of  June. 

I  reproduce  here,  as  documentary  evidence,  the  declaration 
published  by  a  section  of  the  Socialist  Party  of  Italian 
Workers  in  the  Secolo  of  the  27-28  June,  and  distributed  by 
thousands  in  Milan  as  a  manifesto,  and  which  was  not  men¬ 
tioned  by  either  the  Conservative  or  the  Progressive  news¬ 
papers,  who  tried  by  their  silence  to  perpetuate  the  con¬ 
fusion  between  socialism  and  anarchy. 

Here  is  the  declaration: 

The  Socialist  Party  to  the  Workingmen  of  Italy. — Down 
with  assassins!  “Humanity  now  understands  that  life  is 
sacred,  and  does  not  tolerate  brutal  violations  of  this  great 
principle  which  is  morally  the  soul  of  socialism.” 

C.  Prampolini. 

“He  who  struggles  for  the  right  to  life,  in  exchange  for 
his  labor,  condemns  every  assault  upon  human  life, — whether 
it  be  the  work  of  bourgeois  exploitation  in  factories,  or  of 
the  bombs  or  daggers  of  unintelligent  revolutionists. 

“The  Socialist  Party  which  has  this  principle  for  a  shib¬ 
boleth,  which  expects  everything  from  the  class-conscious 


149 


But  all  anarchists  are  not  individualists,  amorphists 
or  autonomists;  there  are  also  anarchist-communists. 

The  latter  repudiates  deeds  of  personal  violence,  as  or¬ 
dinary  means  of  social  transformation  (Merlino,  for  ex¬ 
ample  has  recently  stated  this  in  his  pamphlet :  Necessitd  e 
base  di  an  accordo,  Prato,  1892),  but  even  these  an¬ 
archist-communists  cut  themselves  of  from  Marxian 
socialism,  both  by  their  ultimate  ideal  and  more  especially 
by  their  method  of  social  transformation.  They  combat 

organization  of  the  working  class,  execrates  the  crime  com¬ 
mitted  against  the  person  of  the  President  of  the  French 
Republic,  as  a  brutal  deed,  as  the  negation  of  every  principle 
of  revolutionary  logic. 

“It  is  necessary  to  arouse  in  the  proletariat  the  conscious¬ 
ness  of  their  own  rights,  to  furnish  them  the  structure  of 
organization,  and  to  induce  them  to  function  as  a  new  organ¬ 
ism.  It  is  necessary  to  conquer  the  public  powers  by  the 
means  which  modern  civilization  gives  us. 

“To  revolt,  to  throw  at  haphazard  a  bomb  among  the 
spectators  in  a  theatre,  or  to  kill  an  individual,  is  the  act 
of  barbarians  or  of  ignorant  people.  The  Socialist  Party 
sees  in  such  deeds  the  violent  manifestation  of  bourgeois  sen¬ 
timents. 

“We  are  the  adversaries  of  all  the  violences  of  bourgeois 
exploitation,  of  the  guillotine,  of  musketry  discharges 
(aimed  at  strikers,  etc.),  and  of  anarchist  outrages.  Hurrah 
for  Socialism 7” 

Socialism  represses  all  these  sterile  and  repugnant  forms 
of  individual  violence. 

Carnot’s  death  accomplished  nothing  except  to  arouse  a 
transitory  atavistic  hatred  of  Italians.  Afterward,  the 
French  Republic  elected  another  President  and  everything 
was  as  before.  The  same  may  be  said  of  Russia  after  the 
assassination  of  Alexander  II. 


150 


Marxian  socialism  because  it  is  law-abiding  and  parlia¬ 
mentary,  and  they  contend  that  the  most  efficacious  and 
the  surest  mode  of  social  transformation  is  rebellion. 

These  assertions  which  respond  to  the  vagueness  of 
the  sentiments  and  ideas  of  too  large  portion  of  the 
working-class  and  to  the  impatience  provoked  hy  their 
wretched  condition,  may  meet  with  a  temporary,  unin¬ 
telligent  approval,  but  their  effect  can  he  only  ephemeral. 
The  explosion  of  a  bomb  may  indeed  give  birth  to  a 


But  the  question  may  be  regarded  from  another  point  of 
view,  which  the  conservatives,  the  progressives  and  the 
radicals  too  completely  forget. 

The  very  day  of  these  outrages  two  explosions  of  gas 
took  place,  one  in  the  mines  of  Karwinn  (Austria),  and  the 
other  in  the  mines  of  Cardiff  (England);  the  first  caused  the 
death  of  257  miners  .  .  .  ,  the  second  the  death  of  210!! 

Although  the  death  of  an  honorable  man,  like  Carnot,  may 
be  regretted,  it  is  not  to  be  compared  to  the  mass  of  human 
sufferings,  misery  and  woe  which  fell  upon  these  467  work¬ 
ing-class  families,  equally  innocent  as  he. 

It  will  be  said,  it  is  true,  that  the  murder  of  Carnot  was 
the  voluntary  act  of  a  fanatic,  while  no  one  directly  killed 
these  467  miners! — And  certainly  this  is  a  difference. 

But  it  must  be  remarked  that  if  the  death  of  these  467 
miners  is  not  directly  the  voluntary  work  of  any  one,  it  is 
indirectly  a  result  of  individual  capitalism,  which,  to  swell 
its  revenues,  reduces  expenses  to  the  lowest  possible  point, 
does  not  curtail  the  hours  of  labor,  and  does  not  take  all 
the  preventive  measures  indicated  by  science  and  sometimes 
even  enjoined  by  law,  which  is  in  such  cases  not  respected, 
for  the  justice  of  every  country  is  as  flexible  to  accommodate 
the  interests  of  the  ruling  class  as  it  is  rigid  when  applied 
against  the  interests  of  the  working-class. 

If  the  mines  were  collectively  owned,  it  is  certain  the 


151 


momentary  emotion,  but  it  can  not  advance  by  the  hun¬ 
dredth  part  of  an  inch  the  evolution  in  men’s  minds 
toward  socialism,  while  it  causes  a  reaction  in  feeling,  a 
reaction  in  part  sincere,  but  skilfully  fomented  and  ex¬ 
ploited  as  a  pretext  for  repression. 

To  say  to  the  laborers  that,  without  having  made  ready 
the  requisite  material  means,  but  especiaTy  without 
solidarity  and  without  an  intelligent  conception  of  the 
goal  and  without  a  high  moral  purpose,  they  ought  to 
rise  against  the  classes  in  power,  is  really  to  play  into  the 
hands  of  those  very  classes,  since  the  latter  are  sure  of 
the  material  victory  when  the  evolution  is  not  ripe  and 
the  revolution  is  not  ready.1 

And  so  it  has  been  possible  to  show  in  the  case  of  the 
late  Sicilian  rebellion,  in  spite  of  all  the  lies  of  those 
interested  in  hiding  the  truth,  that  in  those  districts 
where  socialism  was  most  advanced  and  best  understood 
there  were  no  deeds  of  personal  violence,  no  revolts,  as, 
for  example,  among  the  peasants  of  Piana  dei  Greci,  of 
whom  Nicola  Barbato  had  made  intelligent  socialists; 
while  those  convulsive  movements  occurred  outside  of 
the  held  of  the  socialist  propaganda  as  a  rebellion  against 

owners  would  be  less  stingy  about  taking  all  the  technical 
preventive  precautions  (electric  lighting,  for  instance),  which 
would  diminish  the  number  of  these  frightful  catastrophes 
which  infinitely  increase  the  anonymous  multitude  of  the 
martyrs  of  toil  and  which  do  not  even  trouble  the  digestion 
of  the  share-holders  in  mining  companies. 

That  is  what  the  individualist  regime  gives  us;  all  this 
will  be  transformed  by  the  socialist  regime. 

1  Rienzi,  VAnarchisme;  Deville,  VAnarcMsme. 


V 


—  152  — 

the  exactions  of  the  local  governments  and  of  the  ca- 
morre /  or  in  those  districts  where  the  socialist  prop¬ 
aganda  was  less  intelligent  and  was  stifled  by  the  fierce 
passions  caused  by  hunger  and  misery.1 2 

History  demonstrates  that  the  countries  where  revolts 
have  been. the  most  frequent  are  those  in  which  social 
progress  is  the  least  advanced.  The  popular  energies  ex¬ 
haust  and  destroy  themselves  in  these  feverish,  convulsive 
excesses,  which  alternate  with  periods  of  discouragement 
and  despair — which  are  the  fitting  environment  of  the 
Buddhist  theory  of  electoral  abstention — a  very  con¬ 
venient  theory  for  the  conservative  parties.  In  such 
countries  we  never  see  that  continuity  of  premeditated 
action,  slower  and  less  effective  in  appearance,  but  in 
reality  the  only  kind  of  action  that  can  accomplish  those 
things  which  appear  to  us  as  the  miracles  of  history. 

Therefore  Marxian  socialism  in  all  countries  has  pro¬ 
claimed  that  from  this  time  forth  the  principal  means 
of  social  transformation  must  be  the  conquest  of  the 
public  powers  (in  local  administrations  as  well  as  in  na¬ 
tional  Parliaments)  as  one  of  the  results  of  the  organiza¬ 
tion  of  the  laborers  into  a  class-conscious  party.  The 
further  the  political  organization  of  the  laborers,  in 
civilized  countries,  shall  progress,  the  more  one  will  see 
realized,  by  a  resistless  evolution,  the  socialist  organiza¬ 
tion  of  society,  at  first  by  partial  concessions,  but  ever 

1  A.  Rossi,  VAgitazione  in  Sicilia,  Milan,  1894.  Colajanni, 
In  Sicilia,  Rome,  1894. 

2  The  camorre  were  tyrannical  secret  societies  that  were 
formerly  prevalent  and  powerful  in  Italy.— Translator. 


153 


growing  more  important,  wrested  from  the  capitalist 
class  by  the  working-class  (the  law  restricting  the  work¬ 
ing-day  to  Eight  Honrs,  for  example),  and  then  by  the 
complete  transformation  of  individual  ownership  into  so¬ 
cial  ownership. 

As  to  the  question  whether  this  complete  transforma¬ 
tion,  which  is  at  present  being  prepared  for  by  a  process 
of  gradual  evolution  which  is  nearing  the  critical  and 
decisive  period  of  the  social  revolution,  can  he  ac¬ 
complished  without  the  aid  of  other  means  of  trans¬ 
formation — such  as  rebellion  and  individual  violence' — 
this  is  a  question  which  no  one  can  answer  in  advance. 
Marxian  socialists  are  not  prophets,  - 

Our  sincere  wish  is  that  the  social  revolution,  when 
its  evolution  shall  be  ripe,  may  be  effected  peacefully, 
as  so  many  other  revolutions  have  been,  without  blood¬ 
shed — like  the  English  Revolution,  which  preceded  by 
a  century,  with  its  Bill  of  Rights ,  the  French  Revolu¬ 
tion;  like  the  Italian  Revolution  in  Tuscany  in  1859; 
like  the  Brazilian  Revolution,  with  the  exile  of  the  Em¬ 
peror  Dom  Pedro,  in  1892. 

It  is  certain  that  socialism  by  spreading  education  and 
culture  among  the  people,  by  organizing  the  workers 
into  a  class-conscious  party  under  its  banner,  is  only 
increasing  the  probability  of  the  fulfilment  of  our  hope, 
and  is  dissipating  the  old  forebodings  of  a  reaction  after 
the  advent  of  socialism,  which  wrere  indeed  justified  when 
socialism  was  still  utopian  in  its  means  of  realization  in¬ 
stead  of  being,  as  it  now  is,  a  natural  and  spontaneous, 
and  therefore  inevitable  and  irrevocable,  phase  of  the 
evolution  of  humanity. 


/ 


154 


Where  will  this  social  revolution  start?  I  am  firmly 
convinced  that  if  the  Latin  peoples,  being  Southerners, 
are  more  ready  for  revolt,  which  may  suffice  for  purely 
political  transformations,  the  peoples  of  the  North,  the 
Germans  and  Anglo-Saxons  are  better  prepared  for  the 
tranquil  and  orderly  but  inexorable  process  of  the  true 
revolution,  understood  as  the  critical  phase  of  an  organic, 
incomplete,  preparatory  evolution,  which  is  the  only 
effective  process  for  a  truly  social  transformation. 

It  is  in  Germany  and  England,  where  the  greater  de¬ 
velopment  of  bourgeois  industrialism  inevitably  ag¬ 
gravates  its  detrimental  consequences,  and  thereby  mag¬ 
nifies  the  necessity  for  socialism,  that  the  great  social 
metarmorphosis  will  perhaps  begin — though  indeed  it 
has  begun  everywhere — and  from  there  it  will  spread 
across  old  Europe,  just  as  at  the  close  of  the  last  century 
the  signal  for  the  political  and  bourgeois  revolution  was 
raised  by  France. 

However  this  may  be,  we  have  just  demonstrated  once 
more  the  profound  difference  there  is  between  socialism 
and  anarchism — which  our  opponents  and  the  servile 
press  endeavor  to  confound1  and,  at  all  events,  I  have 
demonstrated  that  Marxian  socialism  is  in  harmony  with 
modern  science  and  is  its  logical  continuation.  That 

1 1  must  recognize  that  one  of  the  recent  historians  of 
socialism,  M.  VAbb6  Winterer — more  candid  and  honorable 
than  more  than  one  Jesuitical  journalist — distinguishes 
always,  in  each  country,  the  socialist  movement  from  the 
anarchist  movement. 

Winterer,  le  Socialisme  contemporain,  Paris,  1894,  2nd 
edition. 


is  exactly  the  reason  why  it  has  made  the  theory  of 
evolution  the  basis  of  its  inductions  and  why  it  thu§ 
marks  the  truly  living  and  final  phase — and,  therefore, 
the  only  phase  recognized  by  the  intelligence  of  the  col¬ 
lectivist  democracy — of  socialism  which  had  theretofore 
remained  floating  in  the  nebulosities  of  sentiment  and 
why  it  has  taken  as  its  guide  the  unerring  compass  of 
scientific  thought,  rejuvenated  by  the  works  of  Darwin 
and  Spencer. 


156 


PART  THIRD. 

Sociology  and  Socialism. 


XIII. 

THE  STERILITY  OF  SOCIOLOGY. 


One  of  the 
tific  thought 

the  profound  scientific  revolution  caused  by  Darwinism 
and  Spencerian  evolution  has  reinvigorated  with  new 
youth  all  the  physical,  biological  and  even  psychological 
sciences,  when  it  reached  the  domain  of  the  social 
sciences,  it  only  superficially  rippled  the  tranquil  and 
orthodox  surface  of  the  lake  of  that  social  science  par 
excellence ,  political  economy. 

It  has  led,  it  is  true,  through  the  initiative  of  Auguste 
Comte — whose  name  has  been  somewhat  obscured  by 
those  of  Darwin  and  Spencer,  but  who  was  certainly  one 
of  the  greatest  and  most  prolific  geniuses  of  our  age — 
to  the  creation  of  a  new  science,  Sociology ,  which  should 


strangest  facts  in  the  history  of  the  scien- 
of  the  nineteenth  century  is  that,  though 


157 


be,  together  with  the  natural  history  of  human  societies, 
the  crowning  glory  of  the  new  scientific  edifice  erected 
hy  the  experimental  method. 

I  do  not  deny  that  sociology,  in  the  department  of 
purely  descriptive  anatomy  of  the  social  organism,  has 
made  great  and  fruitful  new  contributions  to  contem¬ 
porary  science,  even  developing  into  some  specialized 
branches  of  sociology,  of  which  criminal  sociology ,  thanks 
to  the  labors  of  the  Italian  school,  has  become  one  of 
the  most  important  results. 

But  when  the  politico-social  question  is  entered  upon, 
the  new  science  of  sociology  is  overpowered  hy  a  sort  of 
hypnotic  sleep  and  remains  suspended  in  a  sterile,  color¬ 
less  limbo,  thus  permitting  sociologists  to  be  in  public 
economy,  as  in  politics,  conservatives  or  radicals,  in  ac¬ 
cordance  with  their  respective  whims  or  subjective 
tendencies. 

And  while  Darwinian  biology,  by  the  scientific  de¬ 
termination  of  the  relations  between  the  individual  and 
the  species,  and  evolutionist  sociology  itself  by  describing 
in  human  society  the  organs  and  the  functions  of  a  new 
organism,  was  making  the  individual  a  cell  in  the  animal 
organism,  Herbert  Spencer  was  loudly  proclaiming  his 
English  individualism  extending  to  the  most  absolute 
theoretical  anarchism.  _ 

A  period  of  stagnation  was  inevitable  in  the  scientific 
productive  activity  of  sociology,  after  the  first  original 
observations  in  descriptive  social  anatomy  and  in  the 
natural  history  of  human  societies.  Sociology  repre¬ 
sented  thus  a  sort  of  arrested  development  in  experi- 


mental  scientific  thought,  because  those  who  cutivated 
it,  wittingly  or  unwittingly,  recoiled  before  the  logical 
and  radical  conclusions  that  the  modern  scientific  revolu¬ 
tion  was  destined  to  establish  in  the  social  domain — 
the  most  important  domain  of  all  if  science  was  to  be¬ 
come  the  handmaid  of  life,  instead  of  contenting  itself 
with  that  barren  formula,  science  for  the  sake  of  science. 

The  secret  of  this  strange  phenomenon  consists  not 
only  in  the  fact  that,  as  Malagodi  said,1  sociology  is  still 
in  the  period  of  scientific  analysis  and  not  yet  in  that  of 
synthesis ,  hut  especially  in  the  fact  that  the  logical  con¬ 
sequences  of  Darwinism  and  of  scientific  evolutionism 
applied  to  the  study  of  human  society  lead  inexorably 
to  socialism,  as  I  have  demonstrated  in  the  foregoing 
pages. 


1  Malagodi,  II  Socialismo  e  la  scienza,  in  Critica  Sociale, 
Aug.  1,  1892. 


159 


XIV. 

MARX  COMPLETES  DARWIN  AND  SPENCER.  CONSERVA¬ 
TIVES  AND  SOCIALISTS. 

To  Karl  Marx  is  due  the  honor  of  having  scientifically 
formulated  these  logical  applications  of  experiential 
science  to  the  domain  of  social  economy.  Beyond  doubt, 
the  exposition  of  these  truths  is  surrounded,  in  his 
writings,  with  a  multitude  of  technical  details  and  of 
apparently  dogmatic  formulae,  but  may  not  the  same  be 
said  of  the  First  Principles  of  Spencer,  and  are  not 
the  luminous  passages  on  evolution  in  it  surrounded  with 
a  dense  fog  of  abstractions  on  time,  space,  the  unknow¬ 
able,  etc.  ?  Until  these  last  few  years  a  vain  effort  was 
made  to  consign,  by  a  conspiracy  of  silence,  the  masterly 
work  of  Marx  to  oblivion,  but  now  his  name  is  coming 
to  rank  with  those  of  Charles  Darwin  and  Herbert 
Spencer  as  the  three  Titans  of  the  scientific  revolution 
which  begot  the  intellectual  renaissance  and  gave  fresh 
potency  to  the  civilizing  thought  of  the  latter  half  of 
the  nineteenth  century. 

The  ideas  by  which  the  genius  of  Karl  Marx  completed 
in  the  domain  of  social  economy  the  revolution  effected 
by  science  are  in  number  three. 

The  first  is  the  discovery  of  the  law  of  surplus-labor. 
This  law  gives  us  a  scientific  explanation  of  the  accumula- 


#JJL 


—  160  — 

tion  of  private  property  not  created  by  the  labor  of  the 
accumulator;  as  this  law  has  a  more  peculiarly  technical 
character,  we  will  not  lay  further  stress  upon  it  here, 
as  we  have  given  a  general  idea  of  it  in  the  preceding 
pages. 

The  two  other  Marxian  theories  are  more  directly  re¬ 
lated  to  our  observations  on  scientific  socialism,  since 
they  undoubtedly  furnish  us  the  sure  and  infallible  key 
to  the  life  of  society. 

I  allude,  first,  to  the  idea  expressed  by  Marx,  as  long 
ago  as  1859,  in  his  Critique  de  Veconomie  politique,  that 
the  economic  phenomena  form  the  foundation  and  the 
determining  conditions  of  all  other  human  or  social 
manifestations,  and  that,  consequently,  ethics,  law  and 
politics  are  only  derivative  phenomena  determined  by  the 
economic  factor,  in  accordance  with  the  conditions  of 
each  particular  people  in  every  phase  of  history  and  under 
all  climatic  conditions. 

This  idea  which  corresponds  to  that  great  biological 
law  which  states  the  dependence  of  the  function  on  the 
nature  and  capacities  of  the  organ  and  which  makes  each 
individual  the  result  of  the  innate  and  acquired  condi¬ 
tions  of  his  physiological  organism,  living  in  a  given 
environment,  so  that  a  biological  application  may  be 
•given  to  the  famous  saying:  “Tell  me  what  you  eat  and 
1  will  tell  you  what  you  are,” — this  sublime  idea  which 
unfolds  before  our  eyes  the  majestic  drama  of  history, 
no  longer  as  the  arbitrary  t  succession  of  great  men  on 
the  stage  pf  the  social  theatre,  but  rather  as  the  re¬ 
sultant  of  the  economic  conditions  of  each  people,  this 
sublime  idea,  after  having  been  partially  applied  by 


161 


Thorold  Rogers1  has  been  so  brilliantly  expounded  and 
illustrated  by  Achille  Loria,2  that  I  believe  it  unneces¬ 
sary  to  say  anything  more  about  it. 

One  idea,  however,  still  appears  to  me  necessary  to 
complete  this  Marxian  theory,  as  I  remarked  in  the  first 
edition  of  my  book:  Socialismo  e  criminalita. 

It  is  necessary,  indeed,  to  rid  this  impregnable  theory 
of  that  species  of  narrow  dogmatism  with  which  it  is 
clothed  in  Marx  and  still  more  in  Loria. 

f—  - i  I  ■  »11""  "MMH  . I 

It  is  perfectly  true  that  every  phenomenon,  as  well  as 
every  institution — moral,  juridical  or  political — is  simply 
the  result  of  the  economic  phenomena  and  conditions 
of  the  transitory  physical  and  historical  environment. 
But,  as  a  consequence  of  that  law  of  natural  causality 
which  tells  us  that  every  effect  is  always  the  resultant 
of  numerous  concurrent  causes  and  not  of  one  cause 
alone,  and  that  every  effect  becomes  in  its  turn  a  cause 
of  other  phenomena,  it  is  necessary  to  amend  and  com¬ 
plete  the  too  rigid  form  that  has  been  given  to  this  true 
idea. 

1  J.  E.  Tti.  Rogers,  The  Economic  Interpretation  of  His¬ 
tory,  London,  1888. 

2  Loria,  Les  Bases  cconomiques  de  la  constitution  sociale, 
2nd  edition,  Paris,  1894.  (This  work  is  available  in  Eng¬ 
lish  under  the  title:  “The  Economic  Foundations  of  So¬ 
ciety.”  Swan  Sonnenschein,  London. — Tr.) 

To  the  general  idea  of  Karl  Marx,  Loria  adds  a  theory 
about  “the  occupation  of  free  land,”  which  is  the  fundamental 
cause  of  the  technical  explanation  of  the  different  econo¬ 
micro-social  organizations,  a  theory  which  he  has  amply 
demonstrated  in  his  Analisi  della  propriety  capitalistica, 
Turin,  1892. 


162 


Just  as  all  the  psychical  manifestations  of  the  in¬ 
dividual  are  the  resultant  of  the  organic  conditions 
(temperament)  and  of  the  environment  in  which  he  lives, 
in  the  same  way,  all  the  social  manifestations — moral, 
juridical  or  political — of  a  people  are  the  resultant  of 
their  organic  conditions  (race)  and  of  the  environment, 
as  these  are  the  determining  causes  of  the  given  economic 
organization  which  is  the  physical  basis  of  life. 


▼  m&s**** 


In  their  turn,  the  individual  psychical  conditions  be¬ 
come  causes  and  effect,  although  with  less  power,  the 
individual  organic  conditions  and  the  issue  of  the  strug¬ 
gle  for  life.  In  the  same  way,  the  moral,  juridical  and 
political  institutions,  from  effects  become  causes  (there 
is,  in  fact,  for  modern  science  no  substantial  difference 
between  cause  and  effect,  except  that  the  effect  is  always 
the  latter  of  two  related  phenomena,  and  the  cause  al¬ 
ways  the  former)  and  react  in  their  turn,  although  with 
less  efficacy,  on  the  economic  conditions. 

An  individual  who  has  studied  the  laws  of  hygiene 
ay  influence  beneficently,  for  instance,  the  imperfec¬ 
tions  of  his  digestive  apparatus,  but  always  within  the 
very  narrow  limits  of  his  organic  capacities.  A  scientific 
discovery,  an  electoral  law  may  have  an  effect  on  in¬ 
dustry  or  on  the  conditions  of  labor,  but  always  within 
limits  fixed  by  the  framework  of  the  fundamental  eco¬ 
nomic  organization.  This  is  why  moral,  juridical  and 
political  institutions  have  a  greater  influence  on  the  re¬ 
lations  between  the  various  subdivisions  of  the  class  con- 
troling  the  economic  power  (capitalists,  industrial  mag¬ 
nates,  landed  proprietors)  than  on  the  relations  between 


fir 


L 


I- 


163 


the  capitalist — property-owners  on  the  one  side  and  the 
toilers  on  the  other. 

It  suffices  here  for  me  to  have  mentioned  this  Marxian 
law  and  I  will  refer  to  the  suggestive  book  of  Achille 
Loria  the  reader  who  desires  to  see  how  this  law  scienti¬ 
fically  explains  all  the  phenomena,  from  the  most  trivial 
to  the  most  imposing,  of  the  social  life.  This  law  is 
truly  the  most  scientific  and  the  most  prolific  sociological 
theory  that  has  ever  been  discovered  by  the  genius  of 
man.  It  furnishes,  as  I  have  already  remarked,  a  scien¬ 
tific,  physiological,  experiential  explanation  of  social  his¬ 
tory  in  the  most  magnificent  dramas  as  well  as  of  per¬ 
sonal  history  in  its  most  trivial  episodes — an  explana¬ 
tion  in  perfect  harmony  with  the  entire  trend — which 
has  been  described  as  materialistic — of  modern  scientific 
thought.1 

If  we  leave  out  of  consideration  the  two  unscientific 
explanations  of  free  will  and  divine  providence,  we  find 
that  two  one-sided  and  therefore  incomplete,  although 
correct  and  scientific,  explanations  of  human  history  have 
been  given.  I  refer  to  the  physical  determinism  of  Mon¬ 
tesquieu,  Buckle  and  Metschnikoff,  and  to  the  anthropo- 

1  It  is  seen  what  our  judgment  must  be  regarding  the 
thesis  maintained  by  Ziegler,  in  his  book:  La  question  sociale 
est  une  question  morale  (The  social  question  is  a  moral  ques¬ 
tion).  French  trans.,  Paris,  1894.  Just  as  psychology  is  an 
effect  of  physiology,  so  the  moral  phenomena  are  effects  of 
the  economic  facts.  Such  hooks  are  only  intended,  more  or 
less  consciously,  to  divert  attention  from  the  vital  point  of 
the  question,  which  is  that  formulated  by  Karl  Marx. 

See  on  our  side,  De  Greef,  VEmpirisme,  Vutopi6  et  le 
socialisme  scientiflque,  Revue  Socialiste,  Aug.,  1886,  p.  688. 


logical  determinism  of  the  ethnologists  who  find  the  ex¬ 
planation  of  the  events  of  history  in  the  organic  and 
psychical  characteristics  of  the  various  races  of  men. 

Karl  Marx  sums  up,  combines  and  completes  these  two 
theories  by  his  economic  determinism. 


The  economic  conditions — which  are  the  resultant  of 
the  ethnical  energies  and  aptitudes  acting  in  a  given 
physical  environment — are  the  determining  basis  of  all 
the  moral,  juridical  and  political  phenomenal  manifesta¬ 
tions  of  human  life,  both  individual  and  social. 


This  is  the  sublime  conception,  the  fact-founded  and 
scientific  Marxian  theory,  which  fears  no  criticism,  rest¬ 
ing  as  it  does  on  the  best  established  results  of  geology 
and  biology,  of  psychology  and  sociology. 

It  is  thanks  to  it  that  students  of  the  philosophy  of 
law  and  sociology  are  able  to  determine  the  true  nature 
and  functions  of  the  State  which,  as  it  is  nothing  but 
“society  juridically  and  politically  organized,”  is  only 
the  secular  arm  used  by  the  class  in  possession  ofthe" 
economic  power— and  consequently  of  the  political, 
juridical  and  administrative  power — to  preserve  their 
own  special  privileges  and  to  postpone  as  long  as  possible 
the  evil  day  when  they  must  surrender  them. 

The  other  sociological  theory  by  which  Karl  Marx  has 
truly  dissipated  the  clouds  which  had  ere  then  darkened 
the  sky  of  the  aspirations  of  socialism,  and  which  has 
supplied  scientific  socialism  with  a  political  compass  by 
the  use  of  which  it  can  guide  its  course^with  complete 
confidence  and  certainty,  in  the  struggles  of  every-day 


<**-+  w 


—  165  — 


life,  is  the  great  historical  law  of  c/ayx  struggles.1  ("The 
history  of  all  hitherto  existing  society  is  the  history  of 
class  struggles.”  Communist  Manifesto.  Marx  and  En¬ 
gels.  1848.) 


rL, 


If  it  is  granted  that  the  economic  conditions  of  social 
groups,  like  those  of  individuals,  constitute  the  funda¬ 
mental,  determining  cause  of  all  the  moral,  juridical  and 
political  phenomena,  it  is  evident  that  every  social  group. 


^  every  individual  will  be  led  to  act  in  accordance  with 
hJL*  its  or  his  economic  interest,  because  the  latter  is  the 
physical  basis  of  life  and  the  essential  condition  of  all 
dy1  J  other  development.  In  the  political  sphere,  each  social 
class  will  be  inclined  to  pass  laws,  to  establish  institu¬ 
tions  and  to  perpetuate  customs  and  beliefs  which,  di- 
/y**?  I  rectly  or  indirectly  subserve  its  interests. 


These  laws,  these  institutions,  these  beliefs,  handed 
down  by  inheritance  or  tradition,  finally  obscure  or  con¬ 
ceal  their  economic  origin,  and  philosophers  and  jurists 
Let  and  often  even  the  laity  defend  them  as  truths,  subsisting 
by  virtue  of  their  own  intrinsic  merits,  without  seeing 
their  real  source,  but  the  latter — the  economic  sub¬ 
stratum — is  none  the  less  the  only  scientific  explanation 
of  these  laws,  institutions  and  beliefs.  And  in  this  fact 


1  As  proof  of  that  conspiracy  of  silence  about  the  theories 
of  Karl  Marx,  it  suffices  for  me  to  point  out  that  the  his¬ 
torians  of  socialism  generally  mention  only  the  technical 
theory  of  surplus-labor,  and  ignore  the  two  other  laws:  (1) 
the  determination  of  social  phenomena  and  institutions  by 
economic  conditions,  and  (2)  the  Class  Struggle. 


r 

S! 


f 


MjU — 


'  consists  the  greatness  and  strength  of  the  perspicacious 
conception  of  the  genius  of  Marx.1 

As  in  the  modern  world  there  are  now  but  two  classes, 
with  subordinate  varieties, — on  the  one  side  the  workers 
to  whatever  category  they  belong,  and  on  the  other  the 
property  owners  who  do  not  work, — the  socialist  theory 
of  Marx  leads  us  to  this  evident  conclusion :  since  polit¬ 
ical  parties  are  merely  the  echoes  and  the  mouth-pieces 
of  class  interests — no  matter  what  the  subvarieties  of 
these  classes  may  he — there  can  be  substantially  only  two 
political  parties:  the  socialist  labor  party  and  the  indi¬ 
vidualist  party  of  the  class  in  possession  of  the  land  and 
the  other  means  of  production. 

The  difference  in  the  character  of  the  economic  mon¬ 
opoly  may  cause,  it  is  true,  a  certain  diversity  of  political 
color,  and  I  have  always  contended  that  the  great  landed 
proprietors  represent  the  conservative  tendencies  of 
political  stagnation,  while  the  holders  of  financial  or 
industrial  capital  represent  in  many  instances  the  pro¬ 
gressive  party,  driven  by  its  own  nature  to  petty  innova¬ 
tions  of  form,  while  finally  those  who  possess  only  an 
intellectual  capital,  the  liberal  professions,  etc.,  may  go 
to  the  extreme  length  of  political  radicalism. 

On  the  vital  question — that  is  to  say  on  the  economic 
question  of  property — conservatives,  progressives  and 


1  The  votes  on  measures  imposing  taxes  in  the  legislative 
bodies  of  all  countries  afford  obvious  illustrations  of  this 
principle.  (The  alignment  of  forces  in  the  struggle  for  the 
income  tax  under  the  late  administration  of  President  Cleve¬ 
land,  is  a  very  striking  instance. — Tr.) 


167 


radicals  are  all  individualists.  On  this  point  they  are 
all,  in  their  essential  nature  of  the  same  social  class  and, 
in  spite  of  certain  sentimental  sympathies,  the  adversa¬ 
ries  of  the  working  class  and  of  those  who,  although 
born  on  the  other  shore,  have  embraced  the  political 
programme  of  that  class,  a  programme  necessarily  cor¬ 
responding  to  the  primordial  economic  necessity — that 
is  to  say,  the  socialization  of  the  land  and  the  means  of 
production  with  all  the  innumerable  and  radical  moral, 
juridical  and  political  transformations,  which  this  so¬ 
cialization  will  inevitably  bring  to  pass  in  the  social 
world. 

This  is  why  contemporary  political  life  cannot  but 
degenerate  into  the  most  sterile  byzantinisme  and  the 
most  corrupt  strife  for  bribes  and  spoils,  when  it  is  con¬ 
fined  to  the  superficial  skirmishes  between  individualist 
parties,  which  differ  only  by  a  shade  and  in  their  formal 
names,  but  whose  ideas  are  so  similar  that  one  often  sees 
radicals  and  progressives  less  modern  than  many  con¬ 
servatives. 

There  will  be  a  new  birth  of  political  life  only  with 
the  development  of  the  socialist  party,  because,  after  the 
disappearance  from  the  political  stage  of  the  historical 
figures  of  the  patriots  (the  founders  of  modern  Italy) 
and  of  the  personal  reasons  which  split  up  the  repre¬ 
sentatives  into  different  political  groups,  the  formation 
of  one  single  individualist  party  will  become  necessary, 
las  I  declared  in  the  Italian  Chamber  on  the  20th  of 
December,  1893. 

The  historical  duel  will  then  be  begun,  and  the  Class 
Struggle  will  then  display  on  the  field  of  politics  all  its 


168 


beneficent  influence.  Beneficent,  I  say,  because  the 
class  struggle  must  be  understood  not  in  the  contempt¬ 
ible  sense  of  a  Saturnalia  of  fist-fights  and  outrages,  of 
malevolence  and  personal  violence,  but  must  be  worth¬ 
ily  conceived  as  a  great  social  drama.  With  all  my  heart 
I  hope  that  this  conflict  may  be  settled,  for  the  progress 
of  civilization,  without  bloody  convulsions,  but  historical 
destiny  has  decreed  the  conflict,  and  it  is  not  given  to  us 
or  to  others  to  avert  or  postpone  it. 


It  follows  from  all  that  we  have  just  said  that  these 
ideas  of  political  socialism,  because  they  are  scientific, 
dispose  their  partisans  both  to  personal  tolerance  and  to 
theoretical  inflexibility.1 2  This  is  also  a  conclusion  reached 
by  experimental  psychology  in  the  domain  of  philosophy. 
However  great  our  personal  sympathies  may  be  for  such 
or  such  a  representative  of  the  radical  faction  of  the 
individualist  party  (as  well  as  for  every  honorable  and 
sincere  representative  of  any  scientific,  religious  or  polit¬ 
ical  opinion  whatsoever),  we  are  bound  to  recognize  that 
there  are  on  the  side  of  socialism  no  partiti  afhnif  It 
is  necessary  to  be  on  one  side  or  the  other — individualist 
or  socialist.  There  is  no  middle  ground.  And  I  am  con¬ 
stantly  growing  more  and  more  convinced  that  the  only 
serviceable  tactics  for  the  formation  of  a  socialist  party 
likely  to  live,  is  precisely  that  policy  of  theoretical  in- 


1  If  uncompromisingness  was  an  English  word,  it  would 
express  the  thought  more  clearly  and  strongly. — Tr. 

2  Parties  related  by  affinity  of  object,  tactics,  or,  more 
especially,  of  immediate  demands. — Tr. 


169 


flexibility  and  of  refusing  to  enter  into  any  “alliance” 
v  with  par  tit  i  afiini,  as  such  an  alliance  is  for  socialism 
(  only  a  “false  placenta”  for  a  fetus  that  is  unlikely  to 
live. 

The  conservative  and  the  socialist  are  the  natural 
products  of  the  individual  character  and  the  social  en¬ 
vironment.  One  is  born  a  conservative  or  an  innovator 
just  as  one  is  born  a  painter  or  a  surgeon.  Therefore 
the  socialists  have  no  contempt  for  or  bitterness  toward 
the  sincere  representatives  of  any  faction  of  the  conserva¬ 
tive  party,  though  they  combat  their  ideas  unrelentingly. 
If  such  or  such  a  socialist  shows  himself  intolerant,  if 
he  abuses  his  opponents,  this  is  because  he  is  the  victim 
Of  a  passing  emotion  or  of  an  ill-balanced  temperament ; 
it  is,  therefore,  very  excusable. 

The  thing  that  provokes  a  smile  of  pity  is  to  see  cer¬ 
tain  conservatives  “young  in  years,  but  old  in  thought” 
— for  conservatism  in  the  young  can  be  nothing  but  the 
effect  of  calculating  selfishness  or  the  index  of  psychical 
anemia — have  an  air  of  complacency  or  of  pity  for  so¬ 
cialists  whom  they  consider,  at  best,  as  “misled,”  with¬ 
out  perceiving  that  what  is  normal  is  for  the  old  to  be 
conservatives,  but  that  young  conservatives  can  be  noth¬ 
ing  but  egoists  who  are  afraid  of  losing  the  life  of  idle 
luxury  into  which  they  were  born  or  the  advantages 
of  the  orthodox  fashion  of  dividing  ( ?)  the  fruits  of  labor. 
Their  hearts  at  least,  if  not  their  brains,  are  abnormally 
small.  The  socialist,  who  has  everything  to  lose  and 
nothing  to  gain  by  boldly  declaring  his  position  and 
principles,  possesses  by  contrast  all  the  superiority  of  a 


—  170 


disinterested  altruism,  especially  when  having  been  born 
in  the  aristocratic  or  the  bourgeois  class  he  has  renounced 
the  brilliant  pleasure  of  a  life  of  leisure  to  defend  the 
cause  of  the  weak  and  the  oppressed.1 

But,  it  is  said,  these  bourgeois  socialists  act  in  this 
way  through  love  of  popularity !  This  is  a  strange  form 
of  selfishness,  at  all  events,  which  prefers  to  the  quickly 
reaped  rewards  and  profits  of  bourgeois  individualism, 
“the  socialist  idealism”  of  popular  sympathy,  especially 
when  it  might  gain  this  sympathy  by  other  means  which 
would  compromise  it  less  in  the  eyes  of  the  class  in 
power. 

Let  us  hope,  in  concluding,  that  when  the  bourgeoisie 
shall  have  to  surrender  the  economic  power  and  the 
political  power  in  order  that  they  may  be  used  for  the 
benefit  of  all  in  the  new  society  and  that,  as  Berenini 
recently  said,  victors  and  vanquished  may  really  become 
brothers  without  distinction  of  class  in  the  common 
assured  enjoyment  of  a  mode  of  life  worthy  of  human 
beings,  let  us  hope  that  in  surrendering  power,  the 
bourgeoisie  will  do  it  with  that  dignity  and  self-respect 
which  the  aristocracy  showed  when  it  was  stripped  of  its 
class  privileges  by  the  triumphant  bourgeoisie  at  the 
time  of  the  French  Revolution. 

It  is  the  truth  of  the  message  of  socialism  and  its 
perfect  agreement  with  the  most  certain  inductions  of 
experimental  science  which  explain  to  us  not  only  its 


1  See  the  lectures  of  De  Amicis,  Osservazioni  sulla  questione 
sociale,  Lecce,  1894.  Labriola,  II  Socialismo,  Rome,  1890. 
G.  Oggero,  II  Socialismo,  2nd  edition,  Milan,  1894. 


—  171  — 

tremendous  growth  and  progress,  which  could  not  be 
merely  the  purely  negative  effect  of  a  material  and  moral 
malady  rendered  acute  by  a  period  of  social  crisis,  but 
above  all  it  explains  to  us  that  unity  of  intelligent, 
disciplined,  class-conscious  solidarity  which  presents,  in 
the  world-wide  celebration  of  the  first  of  May,  a  moral 
phenomenon  of  such  grandeur  that  human  history  pre¬ 
sents  no  parallel  example,  if  we  except  the  movement 
of  primitive  Christianity  which  had,  however,  a  much 
more  restricted  field  of  action  than  contemporary  so¬ 
cialism. 

Henceforth — disregarding  the  hysterical  or  unreason¬ 
ing  attempts  to  revert  from  bourgeois  scepticism  to 
mysticism  as  a  safeguard  against  the  moral  and  material 
crisis  of  the  present  time,  attempts  which  make  us  think 
of  those  lascivious  women  who  become  pious  bigots  on 
growing  old1 — henceforth  both  partisans  and  adversaries 
of  socialism  are  forced  to  recognize  the  fact  that,  like 
Christianity  at  the  dissolution  of  the  Roman  world, 

1  There  are,  however,  certain  forms  of  this  mysticism  which 
appeal  to  our  sympathies  very  strongly.  Such  forms  I  will 
call  social  mysticism.  We  may  instance  the  works  of  Tolstoi, 
who  envelops  his  socialism  with  the  doctrine  of  “non- 
resistance  to  evil  by  violent  means,”  drawn  from  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount. 

Tolstoi  is  also  an  eloquent  anti-militarist,  and  I  am  pleased 
to  see  quoted  in  his  book  le  Salut  est  en  vou.s,  Paris,  1894,  a 
passage  from  one  of  my  lectures  against  war. 

But  he  maintains  a  position  aloof  from  contemporary 
experimental  scienee,  and  his  work  thus  fails  to  reach  the 
mark. 


m 


Socialism  constitutes  the  only  force  which  restores  the 
hope  of  a  better  future  to  the  old  and  disintegrating 
human  society — a  hope  no  longer  begotten  by  a  faith  in¬ 
spired  by  the  unreasoning  transports  of  sentiment,  but 
born  of  rational  confidence  in  the  inductions  of  modern 
experimental  science. 


The  End. 


173 


APPENDIX  V 


Editor,  etc. 

Dear  Sir: 

I  have  read  in  your  journal  a  letter  from  Mr.  Herbert 
Spencer  in  which  he,  relying  on  indirect  information 
conveyed  to  him,  regarding  my  book,  Socialism  and  Mod¬ 
ern  Science ,  expresses  “his  astonishment  at  the  audacity 
of  him  who  has  made  use  of  his  name  to  defend  so¬ 
cialism.” 

Permit  me  to  say  to  you  that  no  socialist  has  ever 
dreamt  of  making  Mr.  Spencer  (who  is  certainly  the 
greatest  of  living  philosophers)  pass  as  a  partisan  of 
socialism.  It  is  strange,  indeed,  that  anyone  could  have 
been  able  to  make  him  believe  that  there  is  in  Italy 
enough  ignorance  among  writers  as  well  as  among  read¬ 
ers  for  one  to  misuse  so  grotesquely  the  name  of  Herbert 
Spencer,  whose  extreme  individualism  is  known  to  all 
the  world. 

But  the  personal  opinion  of  Herbert  Spencer  is  a 
quite  different  thing  from  the  logical  consequence  of  the 
scientific  theories  concerning  universal  evolution,  which 

1  This  appendix  is  a  copy  of  a  letter  addressed  by  M. 
Ferri  to  an  Italian  newspaper  which  had  printed  a  letter 
addressed  by  Herbert  Spencer  to  M.  Fiorentino. 


174 


lie  has  developed  more  fully  and  better  than  anyone 
else,  but  of  which  he  has  not  the  official  monopoly  and 
whose  free  expansion  by  the  labor  of  other  thinkers  he 
can  not  inhibit. 

I  myself,  in  the  preface  of  my  book,  pointed  out  that 
Spencer  and  Darwin  stopped  half-way  on  the  road  to 
the  logical  consequences  of  their  doctrines.  But  I  also 
demonstrated  that  these  very  doctrines  constituted  the 
cientific  foundation  of  the  socialism  of  Marx,  the  only 
one  who,  by  rising  above  the  sentimental  socialism  of 
former  days,  has  arranged  in  a  systematic  and  orderly 
fashion  the  facts  of  the  social  economy,  and  by  induction 
drawn  from  them  political  conclusions  in  support  of  the 
revolutionary  method  of  tactics  as  a  means  of  approach 
to  a  revolutionary  goal. 

As  regards  Darwinism,  being  unable  to  repeat  here 
the  arguments  which  are  already  contained  in  my  book 
and  which  will  be  more  fully  developed  in  the  second 
edition,  it  suffices  for  me  to  remind  you — since  it  has 
been  thought  tit  to  resort  to  arguments  having  so  little 
weight  as  appeals  to  the  authority  of  individuals — that, 
among  many  others,  the  celebrated  Virchow  foresaw, 
with  great  penetration,  that  Darwinism  would  lead  di¬ 
rectly  to  socialism,  and  let  me  remind  you  that  the 
celebrated  Wallace,  Darwinian  though  he  is,  is  a  member 
of  the  English  League  for  the  N ationalization  of  the 
Land,  which  constitutes  one  of  the  fundamental  con¬ 
clusions  of  socialism.1 


1  Wallace  lias  advanced  beyond  this  “half  way  house,”  and 
now  calls  himself  a  Socialist. — Tr. 


m 


And,  from  another  point  of  view,  what  is  the  famous 
doctrine  of  “class-struggle"  which  Marx  revealed  as  the 
positive  key  of  human  history,  but  the  Darwinian  law  of 
the  “struggle  for  life”  transformed  from  a  chaotic  strife 
between  individuals  to  a  conflict  between  collectivities? 

Just  the  same  as  ever}7  individual,  every  class  or  social 
group  struggles  for  its  existence.  And  just  as  the  bour¬ 
geoisie  struggled  against  the  clergy  and  the  aristocracy, 
and  triumphed  in  the  French  Revolution,  in  the  same  way 
to-day  the  international  proletariat  struggles,  and  not  by 
the  use  of  violence,  as  is  constantly  charged  against  us, 
hut  by  propaganda  and  organization  for  its  economic  and 
moral  existence  at  present  so  ill  assured  and  depressed 
to  so  sadly  low  a  plane. 

As  regards  the  theory  of  evolution,  how  can  any  one 
not  see  that  it  most  flagrantly  contradicts  the  classical 
theories  of  political  economy,  which  looks  upon  the  basic 
laws  of  the  existing  economic  organization  as  eternal 
and  immutable  laws  ? 

Socialism,  on  the  contrary,  maintains  that  the  eco¬ 
nomic  institutions  and  the  juridical  and  political  insti¬ 
tutions  are  only  the  historical  product  of  their  particular 
epoch,  and  that  therefore  they  are  changing,  since  they 
are  in  a  state  of  continuous  evolution,  which  causes  the 
present  to  differ  from  the  past,  just  as  the  future  will  be 
different  from  the  present. 

Herbert  Spencer  believes  that  universal  evolution 
dominates  over  all  orders  of  phenomena,  with  the  excep¬ 
tion  of  the  organization  of  property,  which  he  declares 
is  destined  to  exist  eternally  under  its  individualistic 
form.  The  socialists,  on  the  contrary,  believe  that  the 


176 


organization  of  property  will  inevitably  undergo — just  aa 
all  other  institutions — a  radical  transformation,  and, 
taking  into  consideration  its  historical  transformations, 
they  show  that  the  economic  evolution  is  marching  and 
will  march  faster  and  faster — as  a  consequence  of  the  in¬ 
creased  evils  of  individualist  concentration — toward  its 
goal,  the  complete  socialization  of  the  means  of  produc¬ 
tion  which  constitute  the  physical  basis  of  the  social  and 
collective  life,  and  which  must  not  and  can  not  therefore 
remain  in  the  hands  of  a  few  individuals. 

Between  these  two  doctrines  it  is  not  difficult  to  de¬ 
cide  which  is  the  more  in  harmony  with  the  scientific 
theory  of  physical  and  social  evolution. 

In  any  case,  with  all  the  respect  due  to  our  intellectual 
father,  Herbert  Spencer,  but  also  with  all  the  pride  to 
which  my  scientific  studies  and  conscience  give  me  the 
right,  I  am  content  with  having  repelled  the  anathema 
which  Herbert  Spencer — without  having  read  my  book 
and  on  indirect  and  untrustworthy  information — has 
thought  proper  to  hurl  with  such  a  dogmatic  tone  against 
a  scientific  thesis  which  I  have  affirmed — not  merely  on 
the  strength  of  an  ipse  dixi  (a  mode  of  argument  which 
has  had  its  day) — but  which  I  have  worked  out  and  sup¬ 
ported  with  arguments  which  have,  up  to  this  time, 
awaited  in  vain  a  scientific  refutation. 

Enrico  Ferri. 

Rome,  June,  1895. 


177 


APPENDIX  IL1 


SOCIALIST  SUPERSTITION  AND  INDIVIDUALIST  MYOPIA. 

Among  the  numerous  publications  which,  for  or 
against  socialism,  have  appeared  in  Italy  since  my  Socia - 
lismo  e  scienza  positive i2 — which  demonstrated  the  agree¬ 
ment  of  socialism  with  the  fundamental  lines  of  contem¬ 
porary  scientific  thought — the  book  of  Baron  Garofalo 
was  looked  forward  to  with  eager  interest.  It  received  at¬ 
tention  both  because  of  the  fame  of  the  author  and  the 


1  This  appendix  was  written  as  a  reply  to  a  book  by  Baron 
Garofalo,  called  La  Superstition  socialiste.  This  book  made 
quite  a  sensation  in  Italy  and  France,  not  on  account  of  the 
solidity  of  its  arguments,  but  merely  because  Garofalo  had 
been  associated  with  Lombroso  and  Ferri  in  founding  the 
modem  school  of  criminology.  As  Garofalo’s  book  is  prac¬ 
tically  unknown  in  this  country,  I  have  felt  justified  in 
making  many  and  large  omissions  from  this  appendix. 
Gabriel  Deville  exposed  the  emptiness  of  Garofalo’s  preten¬ 
tious  book  in  a  most  brilliant  open  letter  to  the  Baron, 
which  appeared  in  Le  Soeialiste  for  the  15th  of  Sept.,  1895. 
— Tr. 

2  The  present  work,  which  appeared  in  Italian  in  1894,  in 
French  in  1895,  and  in  Spanish  in  Madrid  and  Buenos-Ayres 
in  1895.  It  now  appears  in  English  for  the  first  time. 


178 


open  and  radical  disagreement  which  its  publication 
made  manifest  in  the  ranks  of  the  founders  of  the  school 
of  positive  criminology,  formerly  united  in  such  close 
bonds  in  the  propaganda  and  defense  of  the  new  science 
— criminal  anthropology  and  sociology — created  by  M. 
Lombroso. 

It  is  true  that  the  scientific  union  between  the  found¬ 
ers  of  the  new  Italian  school  of  criminology  formed  an 
alliance,  but  they  were  never  in  perfect  unison. 

M.  Lombroso  gave  to  the  study  of  crime  as  a  natural 
and  social  phenomenon  the  initial  impulse,  and  brilliantly 
supported  the  correctness  of  this  conception  by  his  fruit¬ 
ful  anthropological  and  biological  investigations.  I  con¬ 
tributed  the  systematic,  theoretical  treatment  of  the 
problem  of  human  responsibility,  and  my  psychological 
and  sociological  studies  enabled  me  to  classify  the  nat¬ 
ural  causes  of  crime  and  the  anthropological  categories 
of  criminals.  I  showed  the  predominant  role  of  social 
prevention — quite  a  different  thing  from  police  preven¬ 
tion — of  criminality,  and  demonstrated  the  infinitesimal 
influence  of  repression,  which  is  always  violent  and  only 
acts  after  the  mischief  has  been  done. 

M.  Garofalo — though  he  was  in  accord  with  us  on  the 
subject  of  the  diagnosis  of  criminal  pathology — con¬ 
tributed  nevertheless  a  current  of  ideas  peculiar  to  him¬ 
self,  ideas  more  metaphysical  and  less  heterodox;  such, 
for  instance,  as  the  idea  that  the  anomaly  shown  by  the 
criminal  is  only  a  “moral  anomaly;”  that  religion  has 
a  preventive  influence  on  criminality;  that  severe  re¬ 
pression  is,  at  all  events,  the  effective  remedy;  that  misery 
(poverty)  is  not  only  not  the  sole  and  exclusive  factor 


179 


in  producing  crime  (which  I  always  maintained  and  still 
maintain),  but  that  it  has  no  determining  influence  on 
crime;  and  that  popular  education,  instead  of  being  a 
preventive  means,  is,  on  the  contrary,  an  incentive,  etc. 

These  ideas,  in  evident  disagreement  with  the  induc¬ 
tions  of  biology  and  of  criminal  psychology  and  sociology 
— as  I  have  elsewhere  demonstrated — nevertheless  did 
not  prevent  harmony  among  the  positivists  of  the  new 
school.  In  fact,  these  personal  and  antiquated  concep¬ 
tions  of  M.  Garofalo  passed  almost  unnoticed.  His  ac¬ 
tion  was  especially  notable  by  reason  of  the  greater  im¬ 
portance  and  development  he  gave  to  the  purely  juridical 
inductions  of  the  new  school,  which  he  systematized 
into  a  plan  of  reforms  in  criminal  law  and  procedure. 
He  was  the  jurist  of  the  new  school,  M.  Lombroso  was 
the  anthropologist,  and  I  the  sociologist. 

But  while  in  Lombroso  and  myself  the  progressive  and 
heterodox  tendency — extending  even  to  socialism — be¬ 
came  more  and  more  marked,  it  could  already  be  fore¬ 
seen  that  in  M.  Garofalo  the  orthodox  and  reactionary 
tendencies  would  prevail,  thus  leading  us  away  from 
that  common  ground  on  which  we  have  fought  side  by 
side,  and  might  still  so  fight.  For  I  do  not  believe  that 
these  disagreements  concerning  the  social  future  must 
necessarily  prevent  our  agreement  on  the  more  limited 
field  of  the  present  diagnosis  of  a  phenomenon  of  social 
pathology. 


* 


*  * 


After  the  explanation  of  this  personal  matter,  we  must 
now  examine  the  contents  of  this  “Superstition  socialiste,” 
in  order  to  see,  in  this  schism  of  the  scientific  criminol¬ 
ogists,  which  side  has  followed  most  systematically  the 
method  of  experimental  science,  and  traced  with  the 
most  rigorous  exactness  the  trajectory  of  human  evolu¬ 
tion. 

/ 

We  must  see  who  is  the  more  scientific,  he  who  in  car¬ 
rying  the  experimental  science  beyond  the  narrow  con¬ 
fines  of  criminal  anthropology  and  applying  it  in  the 
broad  field  of  social  science,  accepts  all  the  logical  con¬ 
sequences  of  scientific  observations  and  gives  his  open 
adherence  to  Marxian  socialism — or  he  who  while  being 
a  positivist  and  innovator  in  one  special  branch  of  sci¬ 
ence,  remains  a  conservative  in  the  other  branches,  to 
which  he  refuses  to  apply  the  positive  method,  and  which 
he  does  not  study  with  a  critical  spirit,  but  in  which  he 
contents  himself  with  the  easy  and  superficial  repetition 
of  trite  commonplaces. 

To  those  familiar  with  the  former  work  of  the  author, 
this  book,  from  the  first  page  to  the  last,  presents  a 
striking  contrast  between  M.  Garofalo,  the  heterodox 
criminologist  ever  ready  to  criticize  with  penetration 
classical  criminology,  always  in  revolt  against  the  thread¬ 
bare  commonplaces  of  juridical  tradition,  and  M.  Garo¬ 
falo,  the  anti-socialist,  the  orthodox  sociologist,  the  con¬ 
servative  follower  of  tradition,  who  finds  that  all  is  well 
in  the  world  of  to-day.  He  who  distinguished  himself 
before  by  the  tone  of  his  publications,  always  serene  and 
dignified,  now  permits  us  to  think,  that  he  is  less  con¬ 
vinced  of  the  correctness  of  his  position  than  he  would 


¥ 


V 


181 


have  us  believe,  and  to  cover  up  this  deficiency  of  con¬ 
viction  screams  and  shouts  at  the  top  of  his  voice. 

For  instance,  on  page  17,  in  a  style  which  is  neither 
aristocratic  nor  bourgeois,  he  writes  that  “Bebel  had  the 
impudence  to  defend  the  Commune  in  a  public  session 
of  the  Reichstag;”  and  he  forgets  that  the  Commune  of 
Paris  is  not  to  be  judged  historically  by  relying  solely 
upon  the  revolting  impressions  left  upon  the  mind  by 
the  artificial  and  exaggerated  accounts  of  the  bourgeois 
press  of  that  time.  Malon  and  Marx  have  shown  by 
indisputable  documentary  evidence  and  on  impregnable 
historical  grounds  what  the  verdict  on  the  Commune  of 
the  impartial  judgment  must  be,  in  spite  of  the  excesses 
which — as  M.  Alfred  Maury  said  to  me  at  the  Pere- 
Lachaise,  one  day  in  1879 — were  far  surpassed  by  the 
ferocity  of  a  bloody  and  savage  repression. 

In  the  same  way,  on  pages  20-22,  he  speaks  (I  can  not 
see  why)  of  the  “contempt”  of  Marxian  socialists  for 
sentimental  socialism,  which  no  Marxian  has  ever  dreamt 
of  despising,  though  we  recognize  it  is  little  in  harmony 
with  the  systematic,  experimental  method  of  social  sci¬ 
ence. 

And,  on  page  154,  he  seems  to  think,  he  is  carrying 
on  a  scientific  discussion  when  he  writes:  “In  truth, 
when  one  sees  men  who  profess  such  doctrines  succeed 
in  obtaining  a  hearing,  one  is  obliged  to  recognize  that 
there  are  no  limits  to  human  imbecility.” 

Ah!  my  dear  Baron  Garofalo,  how  this  language  re¬ 
minds  me  of  that  of  some  of  the  classical  criminologists 
— do  you  remember  it  ? — who  tried  to  combat  the  positiv¬ 
ist  school  with  language  too  much  like  this  of  yours. 


182 


which  conceals  behind  hackneyed  phrases,  the  utter  lack 
of  ideas  to  oppose  to  the  hated,  but  victorious  heresy! 

*  *  * 

But  aside  from  this  language,  so  strange  from  the  pen 
of  M.  Garofalo,  it  is  impossible  not  to  perceive  the  strange 
contrast  between  his  critical  talent  and  the  numerous 
statements  in  this  book  which  are,  to  say  the  least,  char¬ 
acterized  by  a  naivete  one  would  never  have  suspected 
in  him. 

❖  ❖  * 

It  is  true  that,  on  page  74,  like  an  individualist  of  the 
good  old  days,  and  with  an  absolutism  which  we  may 
henceforth  call  pre-historic,  he  deplores  the  enactment 
of  even  those  civil  laws  which  have  limited  the  jus  utendi 
et  abutendi  (freely,  the  right  of  doing  what  one  will  with 
one’s  own — Tr.),  and  which  have  “seriously  maimed  the 
institution  of  private  property,”  since,  he  says,  “the 
lower  classes  suffer  cruelly,  not  from  the  existence  of 
great  fortunes,  but  rather  from  the  economic  embar¬ 
rassment  of  the  upper  classes”  (page  77).  What  boldness 
of  critical  thought  and  profundity  in  economic  science! 

And,  in  regard  to  my  statement  that  contemporary 
science  is  altogether  dominated  by  the  idea  and  the  fact 
of  the  social  aggregate — and,  therefore,  of  socialism — 
in  contrast  to  the  glorification  of  the  individual,  and, 
therefore,  of  individualism,  which  obtained  in  the  Eight¬ 
eenth  Century,  M.  Garofalo  replies  to  me  that  “the  story 
of  Robinson  Crusoe  was  borrowed  from  a  very  trust¬ 
worthy  history,”  and  adds  that  it  would  be  possible  to 


183 


cite  many  cases  of  anchorites  and  hermits”  who  had  no 
need  of  the  company  of  their  fellows”  (page  82). 

He  believes  that  he  has  thus  demonstrated  that  I  was 
mistaken  when  I  declared  that  the  species  is  the  sole 
eternal  reality  of  life  and  that  the  individual — himself 
a  biological  aggregation— does  not  live  alone  and  by  him¬ 
self  alone,  but  only  by  virtue  of  the  fact  that  he  forms 
a  part  of  a  collectivity,  to  which  he  owes  all  the  creative 
conditions  of  his  material,  moral  and  intellectual  ex¬ 
istence. 

In  truth,  if  M.  Garofalo  had  employed  such  arguments 
to  expose  the  absurdities  of  metaphysical  penology,  and 
to  defend  the  heresies  of  the  positive  school,  the  latter 
would  certainly  not  number  him  among  its  most  eloquent 
and  suggestive  founders  and  champions. 

*  *  * 

And  yet,  M.  Garofalo,  instead  of  repeating  these  sop¬ 
orific  banalities,  ought  to  have  been  able  to  discuss  seri¬ 
ously  the  fundamental  thesis  of  socialism,  which,  through 
the  social  ownership  of  the  land  and  the  means  of  pro¬ 
duction,  tends  to  assure  to  every  individual  the  condi¬ 
tions  of  an  existence  more  worthily  human,  and  of  a  full 
and  perfectly  free  development  of  his  physical  and  moral 
personality.  For  then  only,  when  the  daily  bread  of  the 
body  and  mind  is  guaranteed,  will  every  man  be  able,  as 
Goethe  said,  “to  become  that  which  he  is,”  instead  of 
wasting  and  wearing  himself  out  in  the  spasmodic  and 
exhausting  struggle  for  daily  bread,  obtained  too  often 
at  the  expense  of  personal  dignity  or  the  sacrifice  of  in¬ 
tellectual  aptitudes,  while  human  energies  are  obviously 


184 


squandered  to  the  great  disadvantage  of  the  entire  so¬ 
ciety,  and  all  this  with  the  appearance  of  personal  liberty, 
but,  in  fact,  with  the  vast  majority  of  mankind  reduced 
to  dependence  upon  the  class  in  possession  of  economic 
monopoly. 

But  M.  Garofalo  has  altogether  refrained  from  these 
discussions,  which  admit  of  scientific  arguments  on  either 
hand.  He  has  confined  himself,  on  the  contrary,  even 
when  he  has  attempted  to  discuss  seriously,  to  the  repeti¬ 
tion  of  the  most  superficial  commonplaces. 

Thus,  for  example  (page  92),  opposing  the  socialists 
who  maintain  that  the  variations  of  the  social  environ¬ 
ment  will  inevitably  bring  about  a  change  in  individual 
aptitudes  and  activities,  he  writes  :  “But  the  world  can 
not  change,  if  men  do  not  first  begin  by  transforming 
themselves  under  the  influence  of  those  two  ideal  fac¬ 
tors:  honor  and  duty.” 

That  is  the  same  as  saying  that  a  man  must  not  jump 
into  the  water  ....  unless  he  has  learned  beforehand  to 
swim,  while  remaining  on  the  land. 

Nothing,  on  the  contrary,  is  more  in  harmony  with 
the  scientific  inductions  of  biology  and  sociology  than 
the  socialist  idea,  according  to  which  changes  in  the  en¬ 
vironment  cause  correlative  changes,  both  physiological 
and  psychical,  in  individuals.  The  soul  of  Darwinism, 
is  it  not  wholly  in  the  variability,  organic  and  functional, 
of  individuals  and  species,  under  the  modifying  influence 
of  the  environment,  fixed  and  transmitted  by  natural 
selection  ?  And  neo-Darwinism  itself,  does  it  not  consist 
wholly  in  the  constantly  increasing  importance  attribut- 


185 


/-t  /r 


ed  to  the  changes  in  the  environment  as  explanations  of 
the  variations  of  living  beings? 

And,  in  the  realm  of  sociology,  just  as,  according  to 
the  repeated  and  unquestioned  demonstrations  of  Spen¬ 
cer,  in  the  passage  of  human  societies  from  the  military 
type  to  the  industrial  type- — as  Saint-Simon  had  already 
pointed  out — a  change,  a  process  of  adaptation,  also  takes 
place  in  that  “human  nature”  which  the  anti-socialists 
would  have  us  believe  is  a  fixed  and  immutable  thing, 
like  the  “created  species”  of  old-school  biology;  in  the 
same  way,  in  the  gradual  transition  to  a  collectivist  or¬ 
ganization,  human  nature  will  necessarily  adapt  itself 
to  the  modified  social  conditions. 

Certainly,  human  nature  will  not  change  in  its  fuii-‘  " 
damental  tendencies;  and,  as  an  illustration,  man  like  the 
animals  will  always  shun  suffering  and  strive  after  pleas¬ 
ure,  since  the  former  is  a  diminution  and  the  latter  an 
augmentation  of  life;  but  this  is  not  inconsistent  with 
the  fact  that  the  application  and  direction  of  these  biolog¬ 
ical  tendencies  can  and  must  change  with  the  changes  in 
the  environment.  So  that  I  have  been  able  elsewhere  to 
demonstrate  that  individual  egoism  will,  indeed,  always 
exist,  but  it  will  act  in  a  profoundly  different  fashion, 
in  a  society  whose  conscious  goal  will  be  true  human  soli¬ 
darity,  from  the  way  in  which  it  acts  in  the  individualist 
and  morally  anarchical  world  of  to-day,  a  world  in  which 
every  man,  by  the  working  of  what  is  called  “free  compe¬ 
tition,”  is  forced  to  follow  the  impulses  of  his  anti-social 
egoism,  that  is  to  say,  to  be  in  conflict,  and  not  in  har¬ 
mony,  with  the  wants  and  the  tendencies  of  the  other 
members  of  society.  \ 


186 


But  the  repetition  of  worn-out  commonplaces  reaches 
its  climax  when  M.  Garofalo — surely,  through  inatten¬ 
tion — writes  these  marvelous  lines: 

“Apparently,  many  young  men  of  aristocratic  families 
do  not  work.  It  is  nevertheless  more  correct  to  say  that 
they  do  not  do  any  productive  labor  for  themselves,  but 
they  work  just  the  same  ( ! !),  and  this  for  the  benefit  of 
others! 

“In  fact,  these  gentlemen  fof  leisure’  are  generally  de¬ 
voted  to  sport — hunting,  yachting,  horseback  riding, 
fencing — or  to  travel,  or  to  dilettantisme  in  the  arts,  and 
their  activity,  unproductive  for  themselves,  provides  an 
immense  number  of  persons  with  profitable  occupa¬ 
tions”  (page  183). 

One  day,  when  I  was  studying  the  prisoners  in  a  jail, 
one  of  them  said  to  me :  Such  an  outcry  is  made  against 
the  criminals  because  they  do  not  work;  but  if  we  did 
not  exist,  “an  immense  number  of  persons” — jailers,  po¬ 
licemen,  judges  and  lawyers — would  be  without  a  “profit¬ 
able  occupation!” 

*  *  * 


After  having  noted  these  specimens  of  unscientific  care¬ 
lessness,  and  before  entering  upon  the  examination  of 
the  few  scientific  arguments  developed  by  M.  Garofalo, 
it  will  be  well,  to  aid  us  in  forming  a  general  judgment 
on  his  book,  to  show  how  far  he  has  forgotten  the  most 
elementary  rules  of  the  scientific  method. 

And  it  will  be  useful  also  to  add  a  few  examples  of  mis¬ 
takes  in  regard  to  facts  bearing  either  on  science  in  gen¬ 
eral,  or  on  the  doctrines  combated  by  him. 


—  187  — 

On  page  41,  speaking  of  the  scientific  work  of  Marx 
with  a  disdain  which  can  not  he  taken  seriously,  since  it 
is  too  much  like  that  of  the  theologians  for  Darwin  or 
that  of  the  jurists  for  Lombroso,  he  reasons  in  this 
curious  fashion : 

“Starting  from  the  hypothesis  that  all  private  property 
is  unjust,  it  is  not  logic  that  is  wanting  in  the  doctrine 
of  Marx.  But  if  one  recognises,  on  the  contrary,  that 
every  individual  has  a  right  to  possess  some  thing  of  his 
own,  the  direct  and  inevitable  consequence  is  [the  right¬ 
fulness  of]  the  profits  of  capital,  and,  therefore,  the 
augmentation  of  the  latter/’ 

Certainly,  if  one  admits  a  priori  the  right  of  individual 
property  in  the  land  and  the  means  of  production  .  .  . 
it  is  needless  and  useless  to  discuss  the  question. 

But  the  troublesome  fact  is  that  all  the  scientific  work 
of  Marx  and  the  socialists  has  been  done  precisely  in 
order  to  furnish  absolute  scientific  proof  of  the  true 
genesis  of  capitalist  property — the  unpaid  surplus-labor 
of  the  laborer — and  to  put  an  end  to  the  old  fables  about 
“the  first  occupant,”  and  “accumulated  savings”  which 
are  only  exceptions,  ever  becoming  rarer. 

Moreover,  the  negation  of  private  property  is  not  “the 
hypothesis,”  but  the  logical  and  inevitable  consequence 
of  the  premises  of  facts  and  of  historical  demonstrations 
made,  not  only  by  Marx,  but  by  a  numerous  group  of 
sociologists  who,  abandoning  the  reticence  and  mental 
reservations  of  orthodox  conventionalism,  have,  by  that 
step,  become  socialists. 


*  #  * 


—  188 

But  contemporary  socialism,  for  the  very  reason  that 
it  is  in  perfect  harmony  with  scientific  and  exact  thought, 
no  longer  harbors  the  illusions  of  those  who  fancy  that 
to-morrow — with  a  dictator  of  “wonderful  intelligence 
and  remarkable  eloquence,”  charged  with  the  duty  of  or¬ 
ganizing  collectivism  by  means  of  decrees  and  regula¬ 
tions — we  could  reach  the  Co-operative  Commonwealth 
at  a  bound,  eliminating  the  intermediate  phases.  More¬ 
over,  is  not  the  absolute  and  unbridled  individualism  of 
yesterday  already  transformed  into  a  limited  individual¬ 
ism  and  into  a  partial  collectivism  by  legal  limitations  of 
the  jus  abutendi  and  by  the  continuous  transformation 
into  social  functions  or  public  properties  of  the  services 
(lighting,  water-supply,  transportation,  etc.)  or  proper¬ 
ties  (roads,  bridges,  canals,  etc.),  which  were  formerly 
private  services  and  properties?  These  intermediate 
phases  can  not  be  suppressed  by  decrees,  but  they  develop 
and  finish  their  course  naturally  day  by  day,  under  the 
pressure  of  the  economic  and  social  conditions;  but,  by 
a  natural  and  therefore  inexorable  progress,  they  are 
constantly  approaching  more  closely  that  ultimate  phase 
of  absolute  collectivism  in  the  means  of  production, 
which  the  socialists  have  not  invented,  but  the  tendency 
toward  which  they  have  shown,  and  whose  ultimate  at¬ 
tainment  they  scientifically  predict.  The  rate  of  progress 
toward  this  goal  they  can  accelerate  by  giving  to  the 
proletarians,  organized  into  a  class-party,  a  clearer  con¬ 
sciousness  of  their  historic  mission, 

&  *  * 


All  through  this  hook  are  scattered  not  only  defects 
of  method,  but  also  actual  errors  in  matters  of  fact. 
The  book  is  also  marred  by  an  immanent  contradiction 
that  runs  all  through  it,  in  connection  with  the  absolutely 
uncompromising  attitude  against  socialism  which  the 
author  aims  to  maintain,  but  which  he  is  unable  to  keep 
up  in  the  face  of  the  irresistible  tendency  of  the  facts, 
as  we  shall  see  in  the  conclusion  of  this  analysis. 

In  chapter  IY,  M.  Garofalo  contends  that  civilization 
would  be  menaced  with  destruction  by  the  elevation  to 
power  of  the  popular  classes,  M.  Garofalo,  who  is  of 
an  old  aristocratic  family,  declares  that  “the  Third 
Estate,  which  should  have  substituted  youthful  energies 
for  the  feebleness  and  corruption  of  an  effete  and  degen¬ 
erate  aristocracy,  has  shown  magnified  a  hundred-fold 
the  defects  and  corruption  of  the  latter”  (p.  206).  This 
is  certainly  not  a  correct  historical  judgment;  for  it  is 
certain  that  the  Third  Estate,  which  with  the  French 
Revolution  gained  political  ascendancy — a  political  as¬ 
cendancy  made  inevitable  by  its  previously  won  economic 
ascendancy, — gave  in  the  course  of  the  Nineteenth  Cen¬ 
tury  a  new  and  powerful  impulse  to  civilization.  And 
if  to-day,  after  a  century  of  undisputed  domination,  the 
bourgeoisie  shows  “multiplied  a  hundred-fold”  the  de¬ 
fects  and  the  corruption  of  the  aristocracy  of  the  Eight¬ 
eenth  Century,  this  signifies  simply  that  the  Third  Estate 
has  reached  the  final  phase  of  its  parabola,  so  that  the 
advent  of  a  more  developed  social  phase  is  becoming  an 
imminent  historical  necessity. 


190 


Another  error  in  criminal  psychology — natural  enough 
for  idealists  and  metaphysicians,  but  which  may  well 
surprise  us  in  an  exact  scientist — is  the  influence  upon 
human  conduct  which  M.  Garofalo  attributes  to  the  re¬ 
ligious  sentiment.  “Moral  instruction  has  no  meaning, 
or  at  least  no  efficacy,  without  a  religious  basis’5  (p.  267). 
And  from  this  erroneous  psychological  premise,  he  draws 
the  conclusion  that  it  is  necessary  to  return  to  religious 
instruction  in  the  schools,  “selecting  the  masters  from 
/  among  men  of  mature  age,  fathers  of  families  or  ministers 
of  religion ”  (p.  268). 

v'  ,  In  combating  this  conclusion,  truly  surprising  in  a 

scientist,  it  is  useless  to  recall  the  teachings  of  the  ex¬ 
perience  of  former  times  in  regard  to  the  pretended 
moralizing  influence  of  the  priest  upon  the  school;  and 


cd*/ 

\ 

JW.  ■  ^9* 

of  Jesus  against  the  rich,  the  metaphor  of  the  camel 
passing  through  the  eye  of  a  needle,  or  the  still  more 
violent  invectives  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Church  against 
private  property;  for  long  before  Proudhon,  Saint 
Jerome  had  said  that  “wealth  is  always  the  product  of 
theft;  if  it  was  not  committed  by  the  present  holder, 
it  was  by  his  ancestors,”  and  Saint  Ambrose  added  that 
“Nature  has  established  community  [of  goods] ;  from 
usurpation  alone  is  private  property  born.” 

If  it  is  true  that  later  on  the  Church,  in  proportion 
as  it  departed  from  the  doctrines  of  the  Master,  preached 


191 


in  favor  of  the  rich,  leaving  to  the  poor  the  hope  of 
Paradise;  and  if  it  is  true,  as  M.  Garofalo  says,  that  “the 
Christian  philosophers  exhorted  the  poor  to  sanctify  the 
tribulations  of  poverty  by  resignation”  (p.  166);  it  is 
also  true  that,  for  example,  Bossuet,  in  one  of  his  famous 
sermons,  recognized  that  “the  complaints  of  the  poor  are 
justified;”  and  he  asked:  “Why  are  conditions  so  un¬ 
equal  ?  We  are  all  formed  of  the  same  dust,  and  nothing 
can  justify  it.”  So  that  recently,  M.  Giraud-Teulon,  in 
the  name  of  an  hermaphrodite  liberalism,  recalled  that 
“the  right  of  private  property  is  rather  tolerated  by  the 
Church  as  an  existing  fact  than  presented  as  a  necessary 
foundation  of  civil  society.  It  is  even  condemned  in  its 
inspiring  principle  by  the  Fathers  of  the  Church.”  1 

But  apart  from  all  this,  it  is  sufficient  for  me  to  es¬ 
tablish  that  the  psychological  premise,  from  which  M. 
Garofalo  starts,  is  erroneous  in  itself. 

Studying  elsewhere  the  influence  of  the  religious  sen¬ 
timent  on  criminality2, 1  have  shown  by  positive  docu¬ 
mentary  evidence,  that  religious  beliefs,  efficacious  for 
individuals  already  endowed  with  a  normal  social  sense, 
since  they  add  to  the  sanction  of  the  moral  conscience 
(which,  however,  would  suffice  by  itself)  the  sanctions  of 
the  life  beyond  the  tomb — “religion  is  the  guarantor 
of  justice”3 — are,  nevertheless,  wholly  ineffective,  when 

1  Giraud-Tenlon,  Double  peril  social.  L'Eglise  et  le  social” 
isme ,  Paris,  1894,  p.  17. 

2  E.  Ferri,  VOmicidio  nelV  antropologia  criminate,  Turin, 
1895,  together  with  Atlas  and  more  especially  Religion  et 
Criminality  in  la  Revue  des  Revues,  Oct.,  1895. 

3  De  Molinari,  Science  et  Religion ,  Paris,  1894. 


192 


the  social  sense,  on  account  of  some  physio-psychical 
anomaly,  is  atrophied  or  non-existent.  So  that  religious 
belief,  considered  as  a  regulator  of  social  conduct,  is  at 
once  superfluous  for  honorable  people  and  altogether  in¬ 
effective  for  those  who  are  not  honorable,  if  indeed  it  is 
not  capable  of  increasing  the  propensity  to  evil  by  de¬ 
veloping  religious  fanaticism  or  giving  rise  to  the  hope 
of  pardon  in  the  confessional  or  of  absolution  in  articulo 
mortis,  etc. 

It  is  possible  to  understand — at  least  as  an  expedient 
as  utilitarian  as  it  is  highly  hypocritical — the  argument 
of  those  who,  atheists  so  far  as  they  themselves  are  con¬ 
cerned,  still  wish  to  preserve  religious  beliefs  for  the 
people,  because  they  exercise  a  depressing  influence  and 
prevent  all  energetic  agitation  for  human  rights  and 
enjoyments  here  below.  The  conception  of  God  as  a 
Policeman  is  only  one  among  many  illusions. 

^ 

*  Besides  these  errors  of  fact  in  the  biological  and  psy¬ 
chological  sciences,  M,  Garofalo  also  misstates  the  social¬ 
ist  doctrines,  following  the  example  of  the  opponents  of 
the  new  school  of  criminology,  who  found  it  easier  to 
refute  the  doctrines  they  attributed  to  us  than  to  shake 
the  doctrines  we  defended. 

On  page  14,  M.  Garofalo  begins  by  stating,  “the  true 
tendency  of  the  party  known  as  the  Workingmen’s  Party, 
is  to  gain  power,  not  in  the  interest  of  all,  but  in  order  to 
expropriate  the  dominant  class  and  to  step  into  their  shoe 
They  do  not  disguise  this  purpose  in  their  programmed” 
This  statement  is  found  again  on  page  210,  etc. 


193 


Now,  it  suffices  to  have  read  the  programme  of  the 
socialist  party,  from  the  Manifesto  of  Marx  and  Engels 
down  to  the  propagandist  publications,  to  know,  on  the 
contrary,  that  contemporary  socialism  wishes,  and  de¬ 
clares  its  wish,  to  accomplish  the  general  suppression 
of  all  social  divisions  into  classes  by  suppressing  the  di¬ 
vision  of  the  social  patrimony  of  production,  and,  there¬ 
fore,  proclaims  itself  resolved  to  achieve  the  prosperity 
of  all,  and  not  only — as  some  victims  of  myopia  con¬ 
tinue  to  believe — that  of  a  Fourth  Estate,  which  would 
simply  have  to  follow  the  example  of  the  decaying  Third 
Estate. 

Starting  from  this  fundamental  datum  of  socialism, 
that  every  individual ,  unless  he  be  a  child,  sick  or  an 
invalid,  must  work,  in  order  to  live,  at  one  sort  or  another 
of  useful  labor,  it  follows  as  an  inevitable  consequence 
that,  in  a  society  organized  on  this  principle,  all  class 
antagonism  will  become  impossible;  for  this  antagonism 
exists  only  when  society  contains  a  great  majority  who 
work,  in  order  to  live  in  discomfort,  and  a  small  minority 
who  live  well,  without  working. 

This  initial  error  naturally  dominates  the  entire  book. 
Thus,  for  instance,  the  third  chapter  is  devoted  to  prov¬ 
ing  that  “the  social  revolution  planned  for  by  the  new 
socialists,  will  be  the  destruction  of  all  moral  order  in 
society,  because  it  is  without  an  ideal  to  serve  it  as  a 
luminous  standard”  (p.  159). 

Let  us  disregard,  my  dear  Baron,  the  famous  “moral 
order”  of  that  society  which  enriches  and  honors  the 
well-dressed  wholesale  thieves  of  the  great  and  little 
Panamas,  the  banks  and  railways,  and  condemns  to  im- 


194 


prisonment  children  and  women  who  steal  dry  wood  or 
grass  in  the  fields  which  formerly  belonged  to  the  com¬ 
mune. 

But  to  say  that  socialism  is  without  an  ideal,  when  even 
its  opponents  concede  to  it  this  immense  superiority  in 
potential  strength  over  the  sordid  skepticism  of  the  pres¬ 
ent  world,  viz.,  its  ardent  faith  in  a  higher  social  justice 
for  all,  a  faith  that  makes  strikingly  clear  its  resem¬ 
blance  to  the  regenerating  Christianity  of  primitive  times 
(very  different  from  that  “fatty  degeneration’7  of  Chris¬ 
tianity,  called  Catholicism),  to  say  this  is  truly,  for  a 
scientist,  to  blindly  rebel  against  the  most  obvious  facts 
of  daily  life. 

M.  Garofalo  even  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  “the  want 
of  the  necessaries  of  life”  is  a  very  exceptional  fact,  and 
that  therefore  the  condition  of  “the  proletariat  is  a  social 
condition  like  that  of  all  the  other  classes,  and  the  lack  of 
capital,  which  is  its  characteristic,  is  a  permanent  eco¬ 
nomic  condition  which  is  not  at  all  abnormal  for  those 

WHO  ARE  USED  TO  IT.”  1 

Then — while  passing  over  this  comfortable  and  ego¬ 
istic  quietism  which  finds  nothing  abnormal  in  the  mis¬ 
ery  ...  of  others — we  perceive  how  deficient  M.  Garofalo 
is,  in  the  most  elementary  accuracy,  in  the  ascertainment 
of  facts  when  we  recall  the  suffering  and  ever-growing 
multitude  of  the  unemployed,  which  is  sometimes  a  “local 
and  transitory”  phenomenon,  but  which,  in  its  acute 
or  chronic  forms,  is  always  the  necessary  and  incon- 


1  Garofalo  suppressed  these  lines  in  the  French  edition  of 
his  book. 


—  195  — 


testable  effect  of  capitalist  accumulation  and  the  intro¬ 
duction  and  improvement  of  machinery,  which  are,  in 
their  turn,  the  source  of  modern  socialism,  scientific  so¬ 
cialism,  so  different  from  the  sentimental  socialism  of 
former  times. 

#  H*  ❖ 


But  the  fundamental  fallacy,  from  which  so  many 
thinkers — M.  Garofalo  among  them — can  not  free  them¬ 
selves,  and  to  which  I  myself  yielded,  before  I  had  pen¬ 
etrated,  thanks  to  the  Marxian  theory  of  historic  ma¬ 
terialism — or,  more  exactly,  of  economic  determinism 
— into  the  true  spirit  of  socialist  sociology,  is  the  tend¬ 
ency  to  judge  the  inductions  of  socialism  by  the  biolog¬ 
ical,  psychological  and  sociological  data  of  the  present 
society,  without  thinking  of  the  necessary  changes  that 
will  be  effected  by  a  different  economic  environment 
with  its  inevitable  concomitants  or  consequences,  differ¬ 
ent  moral  and  political  environments. 

In  M.  Garofalo’s  book  we  find  once  more  this  petitio 
principii  which  refuses  to  believe  in  the  future  in  the 
name  of  the  present,  which  is  declared  immutable.  It  is 
exactly  as  if  in  the  earliest  geological  epochs  it  had  been 
concluded  from  the  flora  and  fauna  then  existing  that  it 
was  impossible  for  a  fauna  and  flora  ever  to  exist  differ¬ 
ing  from  them  as  widely  as  do  the  cryptogams  from  the 
conifers,  or  the  mammalia  from  the  mollusca. 

This  confirms,  once  more,  the  observation  that  I  made 
before,  that  to  deny  the  truth  of  scientific  socialism 
is  implicitly  to  deny  that  law  of  universal  and  eternal  evo- 


196 


lution,  which  is  the  dominant  factor  in  all  modern  scien¬ 
tific  thought. 

On  page  16,  M.  G-arofalo  predicts  that  with  the  tri¬ 
umph  of  socialism  “we  shall  see  re-appear  upon  earth  the 
reign  of  irrational  and  brutal  physical  force,  and  that 
we  shall  witness,  as  happens  every  day  in  the  lowest  strata 
of  the  population,  the  triumph  of  the  most  violent  men  ” 
And  he  repeats  this  on  pages  209-210;  but  he  forgets 
that,  given  the  socialist  premise  of  a  better  organized 
social  environment,  this  brutality,  which  is  the  product 
of  the  present  misery  and  lack  of  education,  must  neces¬ 
sarily  gradually  diminish,  and  at  last  disappear. 

Now,  the  possibility  of  this  improvement  of  the  social 
environment,  which  socialism  asserts,  is  a  thesis  that  can 
he  discussed  ;  hut  when  a  writer,  in  order  to  deny  this 
possibility,  opposes  to  the  future  the  effects  of  a  present, 
whose  elimination  is  the  precise  question  at  issue,  he 
falls  into  that  insidious  fallacy  which  it  is  only  neces¬ 
sary  to  point  out  to  remove  all  foundation  from  his  argu¬ 
ments. 

$  *  & 

And  it  is  as  always  by  grace  of  this  same  fallacy  that 
he  is  able  to  declare,  on  page  213,  that  under  the  socialist 
regime  “the  fine  arts  will  be  unable  to  exist.  It  is  easy 
to  say,  they  will  henceforth  be  exercised  and  cultivated 
for  the  benefit  of  the  public.  Of  what  public?  Of  the 
great  mass  of  the  people  deprived  of  artistic  education ?” 
As  if,  when  poverty  is  once  eliminated  and  labor  has  be¬ 
come  less  exhausting  for  the  popular  classes,  the  com- 


197 


fort  and  economic  security,  which  would  result  from  this, 
would  not  be  sure  to  develop  in  them  also  the  taste  for 
aesthetic  pleasure,  which  they  feel  and  satisfy  now,  so 
far  as  that  is  possible  for  them,  in  the  various  forms  of 
popular  art,  or  as  may  be  seen  to-day  at  Paris  and  Vienna 
by  the  “Theatre  socialiste”  and  at  Brussells  by  the  free 
musical  matinees,  instituted  by  the  socialists  and  fre¬ 
quented  by  a  constantly  growing  number  of  working¬ 
men.  It  is  just  the  same  with  regard  to  scientific  in¬ 
struction,  as  witness  “University  Extension”  in  England 
and  Belgium.  And  all  this,  notwithstanding  the  present 
total  lack  of  artistic  education,  but  thanks  to  the  exist¬ 
ence  among  the  workers  of  these  countries  of  an  eco¬ 
nomic  condition  less  wretched  than  that  of  the  agricul¬ 
tural  or  even  the  industrial  proletariat  in  countries  such 
as  Italy. 

And  from  another  point  of  view,  what  are  the  museums 
if  not  a  form  of  collective  ownership  and  use  of  the  prod¬ 
ucts  of  art  ? 

It  is  again,  as  always,  the  same  fallacy  which  (at  page 
216)  makes  M.  Garofalo  write:  “The  history  of  Europe, 
from  the  fifth  to  the  thirteenth  centuries,  shows  us,  by 
analogy,  what  would  happen  to  the  world  if  the  lower 
classes  should  come  into  power  .  .  .  How  to  explain  the 
medieval  barbarism  and  anarchy  save  by  the  grossness 
and  ignorance  of  the  conquerors?  The  same  fate  would 
inevitably  await  the  modern  civilization,  if  the  controlling 
power  should  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  proletarians, 
who,  assuredly,  are  intellectually  not  superior  to  the  ancient 
barbarians  and  morally  are  far  inferior  to  them  !” 

Let  us  disregard  this  unjustified  and  unjustifiable  in- 


198 


suit  and  this  completely  erroneous  historical  comparison. 
It  is  enough  to  point  out  that  it  is  here  supposed  that  by 
a  stroke  of  a  magic  wand  “the  lower  classes”  will  be 
able  in  a  single  day  to  gain  possession  of  power  without 
having  been  prepared  for  this  by  a  preliminary  moral 
revolution,  a  revolution  accomplished  in  them  by  the 
acquired  consciousness  of  their  rights  and  of  their  or¬ 
ganic  solidarity.  It  will  be  impossible  to  compare  the 
proletarians  in  whom  this  moral  revolution  shall  have 
taken  place  with  the  barbarians  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

* 

❖  * 


In  my  book  Socialismo  et  Criminalita,  published  in 
1883,  and  which  to-day  my  adversaries,  including  M. 
Garofalo  (p.  128  et  seq.),  try  to  oppose  to  the  opinions 
which  I  have  upheld  in  my  more  recent  book,  Socialisme 
et  science  positive  (the  present  work),  I  have  developed 
two  theses: 

I.  That  the  social  organization  could  not  be  suddenly 
changed,  as  was  then  maintained  in  Italy  by  the  senti¬ 
mental  socialists,  since  the  law  of  evolution  dominates 
with  sovereign  power  the  human  world  as  well  as  the 
inorganic  and  organic  world; 

II.  That,  by  analogy,  crime  could  not  disappear  ab¬ 
solutely  from  among  mankind,  as  the  Italian  socialists  of 
those  days  vaguely  hinted. 

Now,  in  the  first  place  it  would  not  have  been  at  all 
inconsistent  if,  after  having  partially  accepted  socialism, 
which  I  had  already  done  in  1883,  the  progressive  evolu¬ 
tion  of  my  thought,  after  having  studied  the  systematic, 
scientific  form  given  to  socialism  by  Marx  and  his  co- 


199 


workers,  had  led  me  to  recognize  (apart  from  all  personal 
advantage)  the  complete  truth  of  socialism.  But, 
especially,  precisely  because  scientific  socialism  (since 
[the  work  of]  Marx,  Engels,  Malon,  de  Paepe,  Dramard, 
Lanessan,  Guesde,  Schaeffle,  George,  Bebel,  Loria,  Cola- 
janni,  Turati,  de  Greef,  Lafargue,  Jaures,  Renard,  Denis, 
Plechanow,  Vandervelde,  Letourneau,  L.  Jacoby,  La- 
briola,  Kautsky,  etc.)  is  different  from  the  sentimental 
socialism  which  I  had  alone  in  mind  in  1883,  it  is  for 
that  very  reason  that  I  still  maintain  to-day  these  two 
same  principal  theses,  and  1  find  myself  in  so  doing  in 
perfect  harmony  with  international  scientific  socialism. 

And  as  to  the  absolute  disappearance  of  all  criminal¬ 
ity,  I  still  maintain  my  thesis  of  1883,  and  in  the  present 
book  (§  3),  I  have  written  that,  even  under  the  socialist 
regime,  there  will  be — though  infinitely  fewer — some 
who  will  be  conquered  in  the  struggle  for  existence  and 
that,  though  the  chronic  and  epidemic  forms  of  nervous 
disease,  crime,  insanity  and  suicide,  are  destined  to  dis¬ 
appear,  the  acute  and  sporadic  forms  will  not  completely 
disappear. 

At  this  statement  M.  Garofalo  manifests  a  surprise 
which,  as  I  can  not  suppose  it  simulated,  I  declare  truly 
inexplicable  in  a  sociologist  and  a  criminologist;  for  this 
reminds  me  too  strongly  of  the  ignorant  surprise  shown 
by  a  review  of  classical  jurisprudence  in  regard  to  a  new 
scientific  fact  recorded  by  the  Archives  de  psychiatric 
of  M.  Lombroso,  the  case  being  the  disappearance  of 
every  criminal  tendency  in  a  woman  after  the  surgical 
removal  of  her  ovaries. 

But  that  the  trepanning  of  the  skull  in  a  case  of 


200 


traumatic  epilepsy  or  that  ovariotomy  can  cure  the 
central  nervous  system  and,  therefore,  restore  the  char¬ 
acter  and  even  the  morality  of  the  individual,  these  are 
facts  that  can  be  unknown  only  to  a  metaphysical  ideal¬ 
ist,  an  opponent  of  the  positivist  school  of  criminology. 

And  yet  this  is  how  M.  Garofalo  comments  on  my  in¬ 
duction  (p.  240);  this  commentary  is  reproduced  again 
on  pages  95,  100,  134  and  291: 

“It  is  truly  extraordinary  that  M.  Ferri,  notwith¬ 
standing  that  criminal  anthropology,  of  which  he  has 
so  long  been  (and  still  is)  one  of  the  most  ardent  par¬ 
tisans,  should  have  allowed  himself  to  he  so  blinded  by 
the  mirage  of  socialism.  A  statement  such  as  that  which 
I  have  quoted  at  first  leaves  the  reader  stunned,  since 
he  sees  absolutely  no  connection  between  nervous  diseases 

Kt 

and  collective  ownership.  It  would  be  just  as  sensible 
to  say  that  by  the  study  of  algebra  one  can  make  sure 
of  one’s  first-born  child  being  a  male.”  How  exactly 
like  the  remarks  of  the  Be  view  of  jurisprudence  com 
cerning  the  case  of  the  removal  of  the  ovaries! 

Now,  let  us  see  whether  it  is  possible,  by  a  supreme 
effort  of  our  feeble  intellect,  to  point  out  a  connection 
between  nervous  diseases  and  collective  ownership. 

That  poverty,  i.  e .,  inadequate  physical  and  mental 
nutrition — in  the  life  of  the  individual  and  through 
hereditary  transmission — is,  if  not  the  only  and  exclusive 
cause,  certainly  the  principal  cause  of  human  degenera¬ 
tion,  is  henceforth  an  indisputable  and  undisputed  fact. 

That  the  poverty  and  misery  of  the  working  class — • 
and  notably  of  the  unhappy  triad  of  the  unemployed,  the 
displaced  [by  machinery,  trusts,  etc.]  and  those  who 


201 


have  been  expropriated  by  taxation — is  destined  to  dis¬ 
appear  with  the  socialization  of  the  land  and  the  means 
of  production: — this  is  the  proposition  that  socialism 
maintains  and  demonstrates. 

It  is,  therefore,  natural  that  under  the  socialist  regime, 
with  the  disappearance  of  poverty,  there  should  be 
eliminated  the  principal  source  of  popular  degeneracy 
in  the  epidemic  and  chronic  forms  of  diseases,  crimes, 
insanity  and  suicide;  this  can,  moreover,  be  seen  at 
present — on  a  small  scale,  but  clearly  enough  to  positively 
confirm  the  general  induction — since  diseases  [nervous], 
crimes,  insanity  and  suicide  increase  during  famines  and 
crises,  while  they  diminish  in  years  when  the  economic 
conditions  are  less  wretched. 

There  is  still  more  to  be  said.  Even  among  the  aris¬ 
tocracy  and  bourgeoisie,  no  one  can  fail  to  see  that  the 
feverish  competition  and  cannibalistic  strife  of  our 
present  system  beget  nervous  disorders,  crime  and  sui¬ 
cide,  which  would  be  rendered  quite  unnecessary  by  the 
establishment  of  a  socialist  regime,  which  would  banish 
worry  and  uneasiness  for  the  morrow  from  the  human 
race. 

There  then  you  see  established  the  relation  between 
collective  ownership  and  nervous  diseases  or  degenera¬ 
tion  in  general,  not  only  among  the  popular  and  more 
numerous  classes,  but  also  in  the  bourgeois  and  aris¬ 


tocratic  classes. 

It  is,  indeed,  astonishing  that  the  anti-socialist  prej¬ 
udice  of  M.  Garofalo  should  have  been  strong  enough 
to  cause  him  to  forget  that  truth  which  is  nevertheless 
a  legitimate  induction  of  criminal  biology  and  sociology, 


202 


* 


the  truth  that  besides  the  congenital  criminal  there  are 
other  types  of  criminals  who  are  more  numerous  and 
more  directly  produced  by  the  vitiated  social  environ¬ 
ment.  And,  finally,  if  the  congenital  criminal  is  not 
himself  the  direct  product  of  the  environment,  he  is  in¬ 
directly  its  product  through  the  degeneration  begun  in 
his  ancestors,  by  some  acute  disease  in  some  cases,  but 
by  debilitating  poverty  in  the  majority  of  cases,  and 
afterward  hereditarily  transmitted  and  aggravated  in 
accordance  with  the  inexorable  laws  discovered  by  mod¬ 
ern  science. 

* 

% 

M.  Garofalo’s  book,  which  was  announced  as  an  assault 
of  science  upon  socialism,  has  been,  even  from  this  point 
of  view,  a  complete  disappointment,  as  even  the  Italian 
anti-socialists  have  confessed  in  several  of  the  most  or¬ 
thodox  Reviews. 

It  now  remains  for  me  to  reply  briefly  to  his  observa¬ 
tions — and  they  are  few  and  far  between — on  the  rela¬ 
tions  which  exist  between  contemporary  socialism  and 
the  general  trend  and  tendency  of  thought  in  the  exact 
sciences. 

Disregarding  the  arguments  which  I  had  developed  on 
this  subject  by  pointing  out  that  there  is  an  essential 
connection  between  economic  and  social  transmutation 
(Marx)  and  the  theories  of  biological  transmutation 
(Darwin)  and  of  universal  transmutation  (Spencer),  M. 
Garofalo  has  thought  it  prudent  to  take  up  for  considera¬ 
tion  only  “the  struggle  for  existence”  and  the  relations 
between  “evolution  and  revolution.” 


203 


As  to  the  first,  five  pages  (96 — 100)  are  enough  to 
enable  him  to  declare,  without  supporting  his  declaration 
by  any  positive  argument  which  is  not  merely  a  different 
verbal  expression  of  the  same  idea,  that  the  Darwinan 
law  of  the  struggle  for  existence  has  not  undergone  and 
can  not  undergo  any  transformation  except  that  which 
will  change  the  violent  struggle  into  competition  (the 
struggle  of  skill  and  intelligence)  'and  tliaFTKis^Iaw  is 
irreconcilable  with  socialism;  for  it  necessarily  requires 
the  sacrifice  of  the  conquered,  while  socialism  “would 
guarantee  to  all  men  their  material  existence,  so  they 
would  have  no  cause  for  anxiety. 

But  my  friend,  the  Baron  Garofalo,  quietly  and  com¬ 
pletely  ignores  the  fundamental  argument  that  the  so¬ 
cialists  oppose  to  the  individualist  interpretation  that  has 
hitherto  been  given  of  the  struggle  for  life  and  which 
still  affects  the  minds  of  some  socialists  so  far  as  to 
make  them  think  that  the  law  of  the  struggle  for  life 
is  not  true  and  that  Darwinism,  is  irreconcilable  with 
socialisms^ 


The  socialists,  in  fact,  think  that  the  laws  of  life  are 
the  following,  and  that  they  are  concurrent  and  insepar¬ 
able:  the  struggle  for  existence  and  solidarity  in  the 
struggle  against  natural  forces.  If  the  first  law  is  in 
spirit  individualist,  the  second  is  essentially  socialistic. 

hTow,  not  to  repeat  what  I  have  written  elsewhere,  it 
is  sufficient  here  for  me  to  establish  this  positive  fact 
that  all  human  evolution  is  effected  through  the  con¬ 
stantly  increasing  predominance  of  the  law  of  solidarity 
over  the  law  of  the  struggle  for  existence. 

The  forms  of  the  struggle  are  transformed  and  grow 


204 


milder,  as  I  showed  as  long  ago  as  1883,  and  M.  Garofalo 
accepts  this  way  of  looking  at  the  matter  when  he  rec¬ 
ognizes  that  the  muscular  struggle  is  ever  tending  to 
become  an  intellectual  struggle.  But  he  has  in  view  only 
the  formal  evolution;  he  wholly  disregards  the  progress¬ 
ive  decrease  in  the  importance  of  the  struggling  func¬ 
tion  under  the  action  of  the  other  parallel  law  of  solidar¬ 
ity  in  the  struggle. 

Here  comes  in  that  constant  principle  in  sociology, 
that  the  social  forms  and  forces  co-exist  always,  but  that 
their  relative  importance  changes  from  epoch  to  epoch 
and  from  place  to  place. 

Just  as  in  the  individual  egoism  and  altruism  co¬ 
exist  and  will  co-exist  always — for  egoism  is  the  basis  of 
personal  existence — but  with  a  continuous  and  progress¬ 
ive  restriction  and  transformation  of  egoism,  correspond¬ 
ing  to  the  expansion  of  altruism,  in  passing  from  the 
fierce  egoism  of  savage  humanity  to  the  less  brutal  ego¬ 
ism  of  the  present  epoch,  and  finally  to  the  more  fra¬ 
ternal  egoism  of  the  coming  society;  in  the  same  way 
in  the  social  organism,  for  example,  the  military  type 
and  the  industrial  type  always  co-exist,  but  with  a 
progressively  increasing  predominance  of  the  latter  over 
the  former. 

The  same  truth  applies  to  the  different  forms  of  the 
family,  and  also  to  many  other  institutions,  of  which 
Spencerian  sociology  had  given  only  the  descriptive 
evolution  and  of  which  the  Marxian  theory  of  economic 
determinism  has  given  the  genetic  evolution,  by  explain¬ 
ing  that  the  religious  and  juridical  customs  and  institu¬ 
tions,  the  social  types,  the  forms  of  the  family,  etc.,  are 


\ 


2G5  — 


only  the  reflex  of  the  economic  structure  which  differs 
in  varying  localities  (on  islands  or  continents,  according 
to  the  abundance  or  scarcity  of  food)  and  also  varies 
from  epoch  to  epoch.  And — to  complete  the  Marxian 
theory — this  economic  structure  is,  in  the  case  of  each 
social  group,  the  resultant  of  its  race  energies  develop¬ 
ing  themselves  in  such  or  such  a  physical  environment, 
as  I  have  said  elsewhere. 


r 


f 

\ 


The  same  rule  holds  in  the  case  of  the  two  co-existing 
laws  of  the  struggle  for  existence  and  of  solidarity  in  the 
struggle ,  the  first  of  which  predominates  where  the  eco¬ 
nomic  conditions  are  more  difficult;  while  the  second 
predominates  with  the  growth  of  the  economic 
security  of  the  majority.  But  while  this  security  will 
become  complete  under  the  regime  of  socialism,  which 
will  assure  to  every  man  who  works  the  material  means 
of  life,  this  will  not  exclude  the  intellectual  forms  of 
the  struggle  for  existence  which  M.  Tchisch  recently 
said  should  be  interpreted  not  only  in  the  sense  of  a 
struggle  for  life ,  but  also  in  the  sense  of  a  struggle  for 
the  enrichment  of  life.1 

In  fact,  when  once  the  material  life  of  every  one  is 
assured,  together  with  the  duty  of  labor  for  all  the 
members  of  society,  man  will  continue  always  to  struggle 
for  the  enrichment  of  life ,  that  is  to  say,  for  the  fuller 
development  of  his  physical  and  moral  individuality. 
And  it  is  only  under  the  regime  of  socialism  that,  the 
predominance  of  the  law  of  solidarity  being  decisive,  the 
struggle  for  existence  will  change  its  form  and  sub- 


1  Tcliiscli,  la  Lot  fondamentale  de  la  vie,  Dorpat,  1895,  p.  i9. 


206 


stance,  while  persisting  as  an  eternal  striving  toward  a 
better  life  in  the  solidaire  development  of  the  individual 
and  the  collectivity. 

But  M.  Garofalo  devotes  more  attention  to  the  prac¬ 
tical  ( ?)  relations  between  socialism  and  the  law  of  evolu¬ 
tion.  And  in  substance ,  once  more  making  use  of  the 
objection  already  so  often  raised  against  Marxism  and 
its  tactics,  he  formulates  his  indictment  thus: 

"The  new  socialists  who,  on  the  one  hand,  pretend  to 
speak  in  the  name  of  sociological  science  and  of  the  nat¬ 
ural  laws  of  evolution,  declare  themselves  politically,  on 
the  other  hand,  as  revolutionists.  Now,  evidently  science 
has  nothing  to  do  with  their  political  action.  Although 
they  take  pains  to  say  that  by  “revolution”  they  do  not 
mean  either  a  riot  or  a  revolt — an  explanation  also  con¬ 
tained  in  the  dictionary1 — this  fact  always  remains,  viz.: 
that  they  are  unwilling  to  await  the  spontaneous  organ¬ 
ization  of  society  under  the  new  economic  arrangement 
foreseen  by  them  in  a  more  or  less  remote  future.  For 
if  they  should  thus  quietly  await  its  coming,  who  among 
them  would  survive  to  prove  to  the  incredulous  the  truth 
of  their  predictions? 

It  is  a  question  then  of  an  evolution  artificially 
hastened,  that  is  to  say,  in  other  words,  of  the  use  of 
force  to  transform  society  in  accordance  with  their 
wishes”  (p.  30.) 

“The  socialists  of  the  Marxian  school  do  not  expect 

1  And  yet,  how  many  judges  have  not,  to  the  injury  of  the 
Socialists,  denied  this  elementary  truth  taught  by  the  dic¬ 
tionary! 


the  transformation  to  he  effected  by  a  slow  evolution, 
but  by  a  revolution  of  the  people,  and  they  even  fix  the 
epoch  of  its  occurence.75  (p.  53.) 

“Henceforth  the  socialists  must  make  a  decision  and 
take  one  horn  of  the  dilemna  or  the  other. 

“Either  they  must  be  theoretical  evolutionists,  who 
wait  patiently  until  the  time  shall  be  ripe; 

Or,  on  the  contrary,  they  must  be  revolutionary  demo¬ 
crats;  and  if  they  take  this  horn,  it  is  nonsense  to  talk 
of  evolution,  accumulation,  spontaneous  concentration, 
etc.  ACCOMPLISH  THEN  THIS  REVOLUTION,  IF  YOU 
HAVE  THE  POWER.77  (p.  151.) 

I  do  not  wish  to  dwell  on  this  curious  “instigation  to 
civil  war77  by  such  an  orthodox  conservative  as  the  Baron 
Garofalo,  although  he  might  be  suspected  of  the  not 
specially  Christian  wish  to  see  this  “revolution  of  the 
people’7  break  out  at  once,  while  the  people  are  still  dis¬ 
organized  and  weak  and  while  it  would  be  easier  for  the 
dominant  class  to  bleed  them  copiously. . . . 

Let  us  try  rather  to  deliver  M.  Garofalo  from  another 
trouble;  for  on  page  119  he  exclaims  pathetically:  “I 
declare  on  my  honor  I  do  not  understand  how  a  sincere 
socialist  can  to-day  be  a  revolutionist.  I  would  be  sin¬ 
cerely  grateful  to  anyone  who  would  explain  this  to  me, 
for  to  me  this  is  an  enigma,  so  great  is  the  contradiction 
between  the  theory  and  the  methods  of  the  socialists.77 

Well  then,  console  yourself,  my  excellent  friend!  Just 
as  in  the  case  of  the  relationship  between  collective 
ownership  and  human  degeneration,  which  seemed  so 
“enigmatical77  to  this  same  Baron  Garofalo — and  al¬ 
though  he  has  not  offered  his  gratitude  for  the  solution 


208 


of  this  enigma  to  the  socialist  Oedipus  who  explained 
it  to  him — here  also,  in  the  case  of  this  other  enigma, 
the  explanation  is  very  simple. 

On  the  subject  of  the  social  question  the  attitudes  as¬ 
sumed  in  the  domain  of  science,  or  on  the  field  of  politics, 
are  the  following: 

1st.  That  of  the  conservatives ,  such  as  M.  Garofalo. 
These,  judging  the  world,  not  by  the  conditions  object¬ 
ively  established,  but  by  their  own  subjective  impres¬ 
sions,  consider  that  they  are  well  enough  off  under  the 
present  regime,  and  contend  that  everything  is  for  the 
best  in  this  best  of  all  possible  worlds,  and  oppose  in 
all  cases,  with  a  very  logical  egoism,  every  change  which 
is  not  merely  a  superficial  change; 

2nd.  That  of  the  reformers ,  who,  like  all  the  eclectics, 
whose  number  is  infinite,  give,  as  the  Italian  proverb 
says,  one  blow  to  the  cask  and  another  to  the  hoop  and 
do  not  deny — 0,  no! — the  inconveniences  and  even  the 
absurdities  of  the  present  .  .  .  but,  not  to  compromise 
themselves  too  far,  hasten  to  say  that  they  must  confine 
themselves  to  minor  ameliorations,  to  superficial  reforms, 
that  is  to  say,  to  treating  the  symptoms  instead  of  the 
disease,  a  therapeutic  method  as  easy  and  as  barren  of 
abiding  results  in  dealing  with  the  social  organism  as 
with  the  individual  organism; 

3rd.  That,  finally,  of  the  revolutionaries ,  who  rightly 
call  themselves  thus  because  they  think  and  say  that  the 
effective  remedy  is  not  to  be  found  in  superficial  reforms, 
but  in  a  radical  reorganization  of  society,  beginning  at  the 
very  foundation,  private  property,  and  which  will  be  so 
profound  that  it  will  truly  constitute  a  social  revolution. 


209 


It  is  in  this  sense  that  Galileo  accomplished  a  scientific 
revolution;  for  he  did  not  confine  himself  to  reforms 
of  the  astronomical  system  received  in  his  time,  hut  he 
radically  changed  its  fundamental  lines.  And  it  is  in 
this  same  sense  that  Jacquart  effected  an  industrial 
revolution,  since  he  did  not  confine  himself  to  reform¬ 
ing  the  hand-loom,  as  it  had  existed  for  centuries,  hut 
radically  changed  its  structure  and  productive  power. 


Therefore,  when  socialists  speak  of  socialism  as  r  evo¬ 
lutionary  ^  they  mean  by  this  to  describe  the  programme 
to  be  realized  and  the  final  goal  to  be  attained  and  not 
— as  M.  Garofalo,  in  spite  of  the  dictionary,  continues 
to  believe — the  method  or  the  tactics  to  be  employed 
in  achieving  this  goal,  the  social  revolution. 


And  right  here  appears  the  profound  difference  he- 
j  tween  the  method  of  sentimental  socialism  and  that  of 
l  scientific  socialism — henceforth  the  only  socialism  in  the 
\  civilized  world — which  has  received  through  the  work 
V  of  Marx,  Engels  and  their  successors  that  systematic 
viorm  which  is  the  distinctive  mark  of  all  the  evolution¬ 
ary  sciences.  And  that  is  why  and  how  I  have  been 
able  to  demonstrate  that  contemporary  socialism  is  in 
full  harmony  with  the  scientific  doctrine  cff  evolution. 


Socialism  is  in  fact  evolutionary,  but  not  in  the  sense 
that  M.  Garofalo  prefers  of  “waiting  patiently  until  the 
times  shall  be  ripe”  and  until  society  “shall  organize 
spontaneously  under  the  new  economic  arrangement,” 
as  if  science  necessarily  must  consist  in  Oriental  con¬ 
templation  and  academic  Platonism — as  it  has  done  for 
too  long — instead  of  investigating  the  conditions  of 

i 

'J 


7?w 


6* . 


—  210  — 

actual,  every-day  life,  and  applying  its  inductions  to 
them. 

Certainly,  “science  for  the  sake  of  science/’  is  a 
formula  very  satisfactory  to  the  avowed  conservatives — 
and  that  is  only  logical — and  also  to  the  eclectics;  but 
modern  positivism  prefers  the  formula  of  “science  for 
life’s  sake”  and,  therefore,  thinks  that  “the  ripeness  oi 
the  times”  and  “the  new  economic  arrangement”  will 
certainly  not  he  realized  by  spontaneous  generation  and 
that  therefore  it  is  necessary  to  act,  in  harmony  with 
the  inductions  of  science,  in  order  to  bring  this  realiza¬ 
tion  to  pass. 

To  act,  but  how? 

There  is  the  question  of  methods  and  tactics,  which 
differentiates  utopian  socialism  from  scientific  socialism; 
the  former  fancied  it  possible  to  alter  the  economic  or¬ 
ganization  of  society  from  top  to  bottom  by  the  im¬ 
provised  miracle  of  a  popular  insurrection;  the  latter,  on 
the  contrary,  declares  that  the-  law  of  evolution  is  su- 
preme  and  that,  therefore,  the  social  revolution  can  be 
nothing  but  the  final  phase  of  a  preliminary  evolution, 
which  will  consist — through  scientific  study  and  propa¬ 
ganda  work — in  the  realization  of  the  exhortation  of 
Marx:  Proletarians  of  all  countries,  unite! 

There  then  is  the  explanation  of  the  easy  enigma, 
presented  by  the  fact  that  socialism,  though  revolution¬ 
ary  in  its  programme,  follows  the  laws  of  evolution  in  its 
method  of  realization,  and  that  is  the  secret  of  its  vitality 
and  power,  and  that  is  also  what  makes  it  so  essentially 
different  from  that  mystical  and  violent  anarchism,  which 
class  prejudices  or  the  exigencies  of  venal  journalism 


—  211  — 

assert  is  nothing  bnt  a  consequence  of  socialism,  while 
in  fact  it  is  the  practical  negation  of  socialism. 

❖ 

❖  ❖ 

Finally,  as  a  synthetic  conclusion,  I  think  it  worth 
while  to  show  that,  while  in  the  beginning  of  his  book 
M.  Garofalo  starts  out  in  open  hostility  to  socialism  with 
the  intention  of  maintaining  an  absolutely  uncompro¬ 
mising  attitude,  declaring  on  the  first  page  that  he  has 
written  his  book  “for  those  who  are  called  the  bourgeois,” 
in  order  to  dissuade  them  from  the  concessions  which 
they  themselves,  in  their  own  minds,  can  not  prevent 
themselves  from  making  to  the  undeniable  truth  of  the 
socialist  ideal,  when  he  reaches  the  end  of  his  polemic, 
the  irresistible  implications  of  the  facts  force  M.  Garo¬ 
falo  to  a  series  of  eclectic  compromises,  which  produce 
on  the  reader,  after  so  many  accusations  and  threats  of 
repression,  the  depressing  impression  of  a  mental  col¬ 
lapse,  as  unforeseen  as  it  is  significant. 

Indeed,  M.  Garofalo,  on  page  258,  recognizes  the  use¬ 
fulness  of  combinations  of  laborers  to  enable  them  “to 
resist  unjust  demands,”  and  even  declares  it  obligatory 
upon  factory-owners  to  assure  a  life-pension  to  their 
laborers  who  have  served  them  long.”  (p.  275.)  And  he 
demands  for  the  laborers  at  all  events  “a  share  in  the 
profits”  (p.  276);  he  recognizes  also  that  the  adult  out 
of  work  and  in  good  health  has  the  right  to  assistance, 
no  less  than  the  sick  man  or  the  cripple  (p.  281). 

M.  Garofalo,  who  by  all  these  restrictions  to  his  ab¬ 
solute  individualism  has  permitted  himself  to  make  con¬ 
cessions  to  Socialism,  which  are  in  flagrant  contradic- 


212 


tion  with  his  announced  intention  and  to  the  whole 
trend  of  his  book,  ends  indeed  by  confessing  that  “if  the 
new  socialists  were  to  preach  collectivism  solely  within 
the  sphere  of  agricultural  industry ,  it  would  at  least  be 
possible  to  discuss  it,  since  one  would  not  be  confronted 
at  the  outset  by  an  absurdity,  as  is  the  case  in  attempt¬ 
ing  to  discuss  universal  collectivism.  This  is  not  equiv¬ 
alent  to  saying  that  agricultural  collectivism1  would  be 
easily  put  into  practice/’ 

That  is  to  say  that  there  is  room  for  compromises  and 
that  a  mitigated  collectivism  would  not  be  in  contradic¬ 
tion  with  all  the  laws  of  science,  a  contradiction* which 
it  seems  his  entire  argument  was  intended  to  establish; 
for  M.  Garofalo  confines  himself  to  remarking  that  the 
realization  of  collectivism  in  land  would  not  be  easy 
— a  fact  that  no  socialist  has  ever  disputed.- 

There  is  no  need  for  me  to  point  out  once  more  how 
this  method  of  combating  socialism,  on  the  part  of  M. 
Garofalo,  resembles  that  which  the  classical  crim¬ 
inologists  employed  against  the  positivist  school,  when, 
after  so  many  sweeping  denials  of  our  teachings,  they 
came  to  admit  that,  nevertheless,  some  of  our  inductions, 
for  example,  the  anthropoliogical  classification  of  crim¬ 
inals,  might  well  be  applied  ...  on  a  reduced  scale,  in 
the  administration  of  jails  and  penitentiaries,  but  never 
in  the  provisions  of  the  criminal  law! 

During  many  years,  as  a  defender  of  the  positivist 
school  of  criminology,  I  have  had  personal  experience 
of  the  inevitable  phases  that  must  be  passed  through  by 

1  More  correctly,  collective  ownership  of  the  land.— Tr. 

ft 


213  — 


a  scientific  truth  before  its  final  triumph — the  conspiracy 
of  silence;  the  attempt  to  smother  the  new  idea  with 
ridicule;  then,  in  consequence  of  the  resistance  to  these 
artifices  of  reactionary  conservatism,  the  new  ideas  are 
misrepresented,  through  ignorance  or  to  facilitate  as¬ 
saults  upon  them,  and  at  last  they  are  partially  admitted 
and  that  is  the  beginning  of  the  final  triumph. 

So  that,  knowing  these  phases  of  the  natural  evolution 
of  every  new  idea,  now  when,  for  the  second  time,  in¬ 
stead  of  resting  upon  the  laurels  of  my  first  scientific 
victories,  I  have  wished  to  fight  for  a  second  and  more 
radical  heresy;  this  time  the  victory  appears  to  me  more 
certain,  since  my  opponents  and  my  former  companions 
in  arms  again  call  into  use  against  it  the  same  artifices 
of  reactionary  opposition,  whose  impotence  I  had  already 
established  on  a  narrower  battle-field,  but  one  where 
the  conflict  was  neither  less  keen  nor  less  difficult. 

And  so,  a  new  recruit  enlisted  to  fight  for  a  grand  and 
noble  human  ideal,  I  behold  even  now  the  spectacle  of 
partial  and  inevitable  concessions  being  wrung  from 
those  who  still  pretend  to  maintain  a  position  of  uncom¬ 
promising  and  unbending  hostility,  but  who  are  help¬ 
less  before  the  great  cry  of  suffering  and  hope  which 
Eprings  from  the  depths  of  the  masses  of  mankind  in 
passionate  emotion  and  in  intellectual  striving. 


JUuj 

— .  —i.  » 


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